We are told all the time that we are not qualified to make medical or healthcare decisions for ourselves or our children. Instead, we need to leave it up to the ‘experts’ – namely the doctors and medical specialists – whose training has supposedly made them better-qualified than any of our own research and knowledge possibly could.

This is despite the FACT that medical doctors learn very little (nothing, really) about vaccination, nutrition or most other aspects of staying healthy when they receive their medical school training. Once they leave school, much of their continuing educationcomes directly from the drug companies so really, I think they are not qualified to advise anyone about these topics. The only exception would be if they themselves have done research outside of their normal areas and, if they have done so and offer advice that goes against the status quo, they are threatened with deregistration or worse!

Most doctors are only qualified to advise patients about drugs, and even that qualification is not independent since, as I said earlier, their training, in large part, comes from the multinational pharmaceutical companies who test and market their own products.

Do doctors understand health?

If you feel that health does not come from a pill or a needle, I think there is very little that a doctor can offer you in the way of staying healthy.

Time and time again, doctors have demonstrated clearly that their knowledge of the basics of health and the immune system/infectious diseases is seriously lacking.

A recent example of this was the incident with Dr Richard Kidd, head of the Australian Medical Association in QLD. During a hearing into legislative changes in the QLD Parliament, Dr Kidd advised a sitting Member to ask her doctor to give her an MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine during her next pregnancy. This despite the fact that MMR is absolutely contraindicated during pregnancy because the rubella portion of the shot could possibly cause congenital rubella syndrome in an unborn child.

I filed an official complaint with the QLD Health Care Complaints about Dr Kidd’s dangerous advice and was told that because Dr Kidd had said this during a hearing, it was not official advice and therefore, was not covered by their legislation! Yet, if you’d said this to your neighbour over the back fence, you could be in trouble! Double standards once again.

In the last few days, another AMA official – this one, none other than the National President – has demonstrated an incredible ignorance of something so basic, most parents would be ashamed to have made this kind of error.

Luckily, Dr Julie Leask (a social scientist – not a medical doctor) picked him up on his mistake, but the fact remains that not only is the President of the AMA displaying a shocking lack of knowledge about one of the main diseases we vaccinate against, but he is comparing those of us who are better informed and better qualified than himself on this subject (e.g., most educated parents and natural therapists/holistic GPs) to Islamic terrorists!

Now, I can’t follow the link to the BBC article the @amapresident was referring to because he removed his original tweet (what is it with health officials constantly trying to rewrite history in order to cover up their numerous errors?) but the implication is obvious: If you are sharing information about vaccination that the AMA does not agree with, you are the equivalent of a terrorist.

Responsible health choices

I believe that making decisions by ONLY seeking the advice of self-proclaimed experts who make such basic errors is irresponsible. I also believe that parents should be taking responsibility for the health of their children, and this means that in addition to speaking with their doctors, they should be seeking out information from a wide range of sources, including their own reading and research and sourcing data from organisations that are critical of government vaccination policies such as the Australian Vaccination Network and the National Vaccine Information Centre (for just two examples).

To show you that this sort of institutional ignorance is nothing new, here is an interview I did on Channel 7’s Sunrise Program in 2002 with Dr Trevor Mudge, then Vice President of the AMA. While I was able to cite data from peer-reviewed medical journal sources, Dr Mudge’s only comeback was to accuse me of being Anti-Vaccine and therefore, claim that everything I said was wrong whilst not being able to back up anything he said with source material.

He admitted that we did not test vaccines here in Australia; he admitted that he had no information on the known side effects and deaths from the vaccine in question (the then unlicensed meningococcal vaccine) and he admitted that the strain covered by the shot did not match the circulating strain of the majority of cases in Australia.

Despite these admissions and despite his lack of knowledge, he still urged people to get this shot because – SCIENCE!

There’s science – and then, there are vaccines…

Science means never having to say you haven’t studied anything thoroughly. Science means always questioning, always testing and never making any absolute statements because today’s science is tomorrow’s junk.

The ignorance being displayed by those who the government claims are the experts we should be listening to without question is disturbing. It is frightening and it should not be allowed to continue.

Doctors have done nothing to earn our trust or our respect, nor have their peak bodies. Indeed, the arrogance, the ignorance and the insistence on being trusted simply because they are doctors has only led to a great deal of suspicion from the majority of the thinking public.

Some doctors have even gone so far as to say that those who disagree with them should be punished, fined or jailed for their beliefs – even if those beliefs are backed by real science! The question that needs to be asked here is – is there more than one way to stay healthy? And if the answer to that question is yes, should any one segment of society – especially one responsible for a holocaust’s worth of pain, death and suffering worldwide each year – be allowed to dictate to others?

YOU as the parent and a thinking adult are and will always be the expert on your body and on the bodies of your children. YOU should ask your doctor for advice, but YOU should only consider taking that advice after seeking out a second (and perhaps a third) opinion, doing your own research and considering your options carefully.

Any doctor who does not respect that innate right; any industry body (like the AMA) who insists on your not being allowed to make these choices, deserves to be shut down; and any government that tries to force free citizens to make medical choices which they do not feel is in their family’s best interest deserves to be charged with crimes against humanity and replaced by a truly representative body.

I’m writing this blog whilst sitting at my chiropractor’s office waiting for my appointment. The air is filled with the scent of lavender and soft music is playing in the background. It’s a lovely, relaxing environment. But thinking about the threats to chiropractic care – and all forms of natural therapies – is keeping me from feeling relaxed.

Those pseudo-skeptics who are reading this are thinking (and working towards the day) that chiropractic will no longer be allowed to exist in Australia. Only drug-based, toxic treatments are OK as far as they are concerned. There are two ways of doing things in their minds – their way or the wrong way. And anyone who doesn’t agree with them on health issues (or most anything else, come to think of it), should be forced to go along with their view of the world.

Bunch of schoolyard bullies, they are!

Normally, I would laugh at people like this. They are so pathetic; so immature; so wrong minded. But when they are backed by a multi-trillion dollar pharmaceutical industry that not only owns the government and the media, but backs them and gives them a platform to spew their hate speech, it’s no longer a laughing matter.

So, I sit in the chiropractor’s office, knowing that it may only be a matter of a few years before chiropractic is no longer able to be practiced openly in Australia. Chiropractic, naturopathic medicine, homeopathy, Bowen therapies, Chinese Herbal medicine…the list goes on. All of these treatments, some of which have been safely and effectively used for thousands of years, could be in their last days here in Australia.

All because people are choosing in their hundreds of thousands to turn their backs on Western medical doctors and opt for treatments that work and are, as close as any treatment can be, harmless. A claim which cannot be made for medical any ‘treatment’. Medical drugs, procedures and errors kill between 18,000 and 54,000 Australians EVERY YEAR! Doctors have not earned the right to be trusted or listened to without question – a right which the government and the medical organisations are demanding.

It’s all about money, power and control

Government control has gone completely bonkers. Not content with trying to ban natural therapies, our diets are also under threat.

Let’s not talk about the fact that labelling of foods containing genetically modified organisms is still not mandatory – despite survey after survey showing that 90% and more of Australians say they want this (who is the government working for again?)

Or the issue of additives, colourings and preservatives that have never been shown to be safe being used in the manufacture and packaging of the foods we eat. Thousands of these additives were approved by our government without any testing or proof of safety either singly or in combination (very much like vaccines, come to think of it). Guess they really DO take their responsibility to keep us safe seriously, eh?

And let’s not forget the herbicides, pesticides, pre-emergents and fungicides used in the growth, packaging and shipment of our foods. These products are not only unsafe for human and animal consumption, but they have destroyed our already depleted soils to the point where foods grown conventionally in Australia are virtually devoid of nutrition.

So our government, sworn to protect us and our rights, has worked full time to destroy our health and take away our rights. All the while, trying its hardest to remove the forms of healthcare that WE choose to use and even the way that WE choose to eat!

I am eating a modified Paleo/ketogenic diet and have been on this for about 2 1/2 months. It’s been amazing! Apart from losing weight (bonus!), I have felt really good and have been feeling increases of energy nearly every day.

This is a diet I chose after doing a lot of research and reading – especially because of its ability to help prevent cancer. I don’t have cancer, luckily, but at nearly 60 years old, I felt it was time to get serious about my health so I read a lot and have chosen to use my diet to help me get healthier. So far, so good.

But in this ‘democracy’ of Australia, doing things differently to corporate interest’s recommendations is a sure fire path to conflict.

Chef Pete Evans is one of the top Paleo experts in Australia. Now, he does not go out and grab people off the street and say, “Ve haf vays ov making you eat Paleo!” He simply offers information, recipes and stories about people who have changed their diet and the positive effects they’ve discovered.

But this is not allowed! If too many people eat Paleo, the food pyramid will be turned upside down! Companies like Kelloggs, Sanitarium and other grain and cereal manufacturers will show a decline to their bottom lines. We can’t have that!

So, their tame front group nutrition organisations(the same ones that still push margarine, genetically-modified oils and a crazy amount of grains with too little greens) have viciously attacked Chef Evans and people like myself who eat a Paleo diet.

These companies are silent about conventional farming practices, adding all sorts of dangerous crap to the foods we and our children eat and the use of antibiotics and hormones in our food animals. But try to eat a diet that is close to nature and that makes you feel good – oh no! We can’t have that!

Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Food – they are all the same. They are all one.

They have their tentacles throughout government and the media. They control what you read, hear, see and do in ways that you – if you are like most Australians – are completely unaware of.

But step outside the box; choose to think independently about diet, healthcare or education and you will find out quickly enough how narrow those confines actually are!

Want to drink raw milk like our ancestors did for generations? No way! Much better to drink pus-filled white stuff that has had all of the nutrition boiled out of it (to kill germs that are only there because of the way in which cows live and are treated on commercial farms). Drink or sell raw milk and you face fines and/or imprisonment.

Want to feed your children a vegan diet? Well, even though a large number of people in countries like China, India and Southeast Asia live on a vegan diet with no problem, you will not be allowed and could even face removal of your children!

No tolerance, no acceptance of any differences allowed in our Australia. You follow the party line or you suffer the consequences. And the party wants to control you from the second you wake up in the morning until the moment you close your eyes at night.

So…I sit here trying to relax before I get called in for my appointment, and wondering how many more appointments I will have before my chiropractor, and your naturopath, and your neighbour’s homeopath become a distant, illegal memory. And asking myself what it will take to finally get natural therapists to work together against the common enemy trying to shut them down for good.

Where is the evidence that vaccines are either safe, effective, or necessary?

Evidence-based medicine has been the buzz-word of the last 10 years. It makes people feel confident about seeing their doctor and taking the treatments on offer if they are thought to be ‘evidence-based’. After all – medical drugs (and vaccines are a drug) are supposed to be ‘evidence-based’, right? They’ve been through all the standard tests, have been studied for years before being released and have stood the test of time to prove they are both safe and effective.

Only they haven’t. Estimates that pharmaceutical products have any benefit range from a low of 15% to a high of only 50% (Ioannidis JPA (2005) Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. PLoS MED 2 (8))– a pretty sorry situation – especially when we see industry-sponsored front groups like the Friends of Science in Medicine (FOSIM) trying to destroy 5,000 year old practices like Ayurveda and Chinese Herbal Medicine because they are not ‘evidence based’.

Of course, my focus is and always has been the practice of vaccination, so how can I show that vaccines are not evidence-based?

I have often posted copies of graphs from Greg Beattie’s excellent book, Fooling Ourselves on the Fundamental Value of Vaccines showing the decline in mortality (deaths) well before the introduction of either vaccination or (in most cases) antibiotics. (and these or similar graphs can be found for just about every country that instituted mass vaccination campaigns in the early part of the 20th century)

These graphs demonstrate clearly and scientifically that there is little to no evidence that vaccinations were responsible in any way for the decline in deaths from infectious diseases experienced over the last 2 centuries.

But what about today?

Australia instituted mass vaccination in 1953. At that time, the only vaccines being used were DPT (diphtheria, pertussis [whooping cough] and tetanus), smallpox, tuberculosis for some individuals, typhoid (mostly for indigenous populations) and a couple of years later, oral polio.

So, we would expect that the introduction of and encouragement to vaccinate all children would have seen an immediate and permanent decline in the rates of infectious diseases we vaccinated against.

But have they?

Pertussis is the most obvious example that all is not right in the state of vaccine effectiveness. We first started using the DPT (whole cell) vaccine in the 1930s, but it was not in widespread use until 1953. In 1991, the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) created a database of all laboratory-confirmed cases of infectious diseases in Australia. This database tracks ALL confirmed cases of these illnesses each year, though it does not track (or even ask) about vaccine status. Now the database itself is suspect because vaccinated people are FAR less likely to be tested for a so-called vaccine-preventable disease than their unvaccinated peers, so we know that this database would underestimate the true rate of infection. But bad data is the only data we have to we’ll go with that for the time being.

For all we know, 100% of those on the NNDSS database who are reported to have had these “vaccine preventable’ diseases were fully vaccinated against them. The fact that this basic information is not requested is an omission so blatant, it would appear to most of us to have been intentional.

But I digress.

Below is the table of reports for pertussis from 1991 (when the NNDSS started collecting data) to 2016. Of course, the 2016 figures are only preliminary and not complete. As you can see, there has been a huge increase in laboratory-confirmed cases of pertussis – an increase that would indicate there must have been a decline in vaccination. After all, if vaccination rates were steady or even increasing and the vaccines provided ANY protection whatsoever, we would expect to see a decline in incidence, not an increase.

But over the time period covered by this table, Australia’s childhood vaccination rates went from a low of 68% (in 1991) to a high of 95% in 2008.

Evidence-Based medicine demands that there be at least some proof of a treatment’s or preventative’s effectiveness. Well here, we have proof positive that the whooping cough vaccine is ineffective (and evidence that it might be counter-productive since increases in vaccination rates have been met with concurrent increases in notifications).

To add insult to injury, if we look at the per capita (per head of population) rate of whooping cough, we find that in 1953, when mass vaccination began, the rate of whooping cough was approximately 100 cases per 100,000 Australians. In 2011 when we had nearly 40,000 cases of pertussis reported in Australia (and a 95% vaccination rate), that equated to a rate of over 181 cases per 100,000 head of population – nearly double what it was before the vaccine was used nationally in 1953.

Mumps (see NNDSS table below) has gone from less than 200 cases per year to over 600 in 2015. This year looks like it might be even higher. Again, there is no information about the vaccination status of these children and adults, but if the Australian situation is anything like that in the US, most of them would have been fully vaccinated with 2 doses of MMR. America has now added a third dose of MMR to the vaccination schedule, simply because the number of mumps and measles cases amongst the vaccinated is exploding.

One has to ask – if 2 doses aren’t working (and when this vaccine was introduced, we were assured that it would be one dose for life), why in the world would 3? Is that really the answer to a vaccine that is not effective – give more ineffective vaccines? I guess if you were a drug company profiting from every shot, it would be the best possible answer. But if we are talking about ‘evidence-based’ medicine, surely we can do better?

In addition, the mumps portion of the MMR vaccine is now the basis of a major whistleblower lawsuit in the US. Two Merck scientists have been granted whistleblower protection for their claims that the protective efficacy of the mumps vaccine has been fraudulently overstated! Merck says it protects 95% of those who receive it – these scientists say it could be less than 60% protective. If Merck loses, they could be subject to a fine totalling in the billions of dollars. Just the cost of doing business for a company like Merck, however.

Reports of influenza are a true shocker! According to the NNDSS, there were over 100,000 cases of laboratory-diagnosed influenza last year – a year in which the stated efficacy of the flu vaccine was 17%. Influenza seems to be exploding in Australia and the more the government and the medicos campaign to get people – from 6 months of age through to the elderly – vaccinated – the higher the number of reports of influenza (much like pertussis).

There are many more tables that you can access at the NNDSS – click here or on any of the tables above for a searchable page where you can filter by disease so you can see for yourself how little vaccination has done to reduce reports of infectious diseases.

The last illness I would like to cover – briefly – is Hepatitis B. A birth dose of Hep B vaccine was introduced in Australia in the 1990s. As most of you would know, Hep B is a sexually transmitted disease and a disease of intravenous drug users. It is NOT a disease you can contract from casual contact and it is NOT a disease that newborns or children are prone to contracting unless their mothers are carriers (and women are routinely tested for this during pregnancy).

To target babies with this vaccine would require real evidence that they are at risk of contracting and suffering from Hep B. Evidence that is non-existent.

Hep B itself is not a disease that, in most cases, causes disability or serious health problems. In most people, the virus is cleared from the system without long-term issues. In a tiny percentage, however, the virus is not cleared and with those people, it is thought that the infection can lead to liver cancer decades later.

This is why the vaccine was introduced – to prevent liver cancer in those who are affected.

So, we would expect, when looking over the incidence of liver cancer during the period of time after the introduction of the Hep B vaccine, that we would see a huge decline in diagnoses.

Nothing could be further from the truth, however.

Since the introduction of Hep B vaccination in the 1980s, the incidence of and mortality from liver cancer has skyrocketed! (Graph from Cancer Australia)

In conclusion, there is no statistical evidence to show that vaccines have been responsible in any way for a reduction in either the reported incidence of or mortality from most infectious diseases they are meant to prevent.

At a time when all treatments must prove to be ‘evidence-based’ and when our tax dollars are having trouble keeping up with the growing demands for medical services, one has to ask why we are continuing to throw good money after bad on ever-more vaccination campaigns targeting the entire Australian population.

The whole thing about vaccination is – it’s supposed to keep you safe.

If you’re vaccinated against measles, you shouldn’t get measles. If you are vaccinated against whooping cough, you should be protected from whooping cough.

That’s the ‘promise’ of vaccines. It’s why doctors and government officials refer to them as immunisations. Because the people who are vaccinated are the last ones who should be getting those diseases.

But the fact is, the vaccinated ARE getting sick with the very things they’ve been vaccinated against.

That used to be called vaccine failure; or breakthrough disease.

Now, it’s called exposure to the unvaccinated.

Pharma may be evil – but you can never say it’s stupid.

Turn a weakness into a strength and you have the beginning of a great marketing campaign. And that’s what we’re seeing right now.

Vaccines not working? No problem! We just need more of them and we need more people to take them. That’ll do it. And, if it doesn’t work, well, the fact that we were able to convince you lot that if 1 wasn’t good, 2, 3, 4 or 8 are better, means you will believe anything we say – no matter how unscientific or idiotic it is.

Because government vaccination policies aren’t based on science – far from it! They are based on emotion; on a religious, some might even say fundamentalist belief that vaccines are the only answer to infectious diseases. Even if the diseases we are trying to prevent rarely, if ever kill and may even be beneficial (measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox come to mind); even if the diseases are easily prevented with clean water and breastfeeding (rotavirus and polio), vaccines will always be the best answer. Even when the vaccines don’t work.

And when they don’t work, the pat answer is – it wasn’t the fault of the vaccine. Oh no! It was the fault of some unknown, unnamed faceless child whose parents were so irresponsible as to not vaccinate them.

Think about that for a minute. We vaccinate to protect our children, but when the vaccines haven’t protected them, we’re told it’s because some outside force has broken through their protection.

Does that make sense to you? If it does, I have some desert land in central Australia that I’m developing into a theme park and I think you’re just the kind of investor we need!

All Theory-All the Time

The theory behind vaccination is – you inject a tiny bit of a chemically-altered (attenuated) virus or bacteria into a person’s body and the body creates antibodies that will stay there forever so that when you are naturally exposed to that virus or bacteria down the track, those antibodies are ready, willing and able to protect you without you developing symptoms.

Sounds good, right?

But we KNOW (don’t think, opine or conjecture – but KNOW) that those antibodies aren’t protective. In fact, they may be counter-productive.

All antibodies indicate is that you have been exposed to an antigen. It’s a sign that either naturally or by other means, your body has come into contact with virus A or bacteria C.

Natural exposure will not always cause the production of antibodies. And true immunity (not to be confused with the production of antibodies) can occur without developing any symptoms whatsoever (called a sub-clinical infection).

The whole basis for the theory of vaccination was disproved decades ago in the 1940s, when Dr Merrill Chase proved that antibodies do not, on their own, protect against disease.

Of course, by then, medicine was already on a course of no return when it comes to vaccination. They could see the dollar signs in their future. They could also see the risks to lucrative treatments if they came out and admitted that the cornerstone of Western medicine had just collapsed.

So, like all good profit-based businesses, medicine just ignored what Dr Chase said and kept on doing the same old, same old. It’s easy to claim that vaccines work if you set the bar so low. All vaccines have to do is induce the production of antibodies and, since vaccines expose you to viruses and bacteria and being exposed will usually cause antibodies, vaccines became a huge success story. Insert shot – antibodies! Nearly every time. And for those who don’t develop antibodies, well, we make up this theory called herd immunity. It’s great! You see, for those few unlucky souls whose bodies, for whatever reason, don’t ‘do the right thing’ and make antibodies, they will be protected by the those around them who have those wonderful things circulating in their bloodstreams.

Great system! Not based in science. Not backed by any proof or evidence whatsoever. But hey, we fooled you once, didn’t we?

So the people who are vaccinated and develop antibodies are protected from disease by their antibodies. And the ones who are vaccinated, but didn’t develop antibodies are protected from disease by the people with antibodies (are you still with me?). But neither the ones with antibodies or the ones who are vaccinated, but didn’t get the mojo from the shot will be protected if an unvaccinated person comes near them.

I see. Makes perfect sense.

But, you ask, what about those people who are vaccinated and develop antibodies, but whose antibodies wear off 6 months to 3 years down the track? What about them?

For them, we have boosters! Or, should I say BOO$TER$! (The worldwide vaccine market is predicted to total $77.5 billion by 2024 – more than double its current value due to mandatory vaccination and the introduction of potentially dozens of new vaccines.)

More money in pharma’s pocket. More expensive visits to GPs. Win/win!

And all of this is because 2 generations have been trained in the most Pavlovian of ways, to be afraid of viruses, bacteria and ALL diseases-more afraid than the are of poisons. Think of the chemicals in those toxic hand sanitisers that are so pervasive today; or the poisons in household cleaners that are far more toxic than most germs you would come into contact with in your home; or the toxins in vaccines and pharmaceutical medications that are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year.

So fearful, they are no longer able to think logically or sensibly about these topics.

They say that there is nothing to fear but fear itself, but I disagree. There is a lot to fear.

Be afraid – and be active

I fear the medical/pharmaceutical cartel that wants to take away our right to say no to poison;

I fear the government and media who are doing the bidding of the medical/pharmaceutical cartel without any care whatsoever for the citizens who elected them or those who buy their newspapers or watch and listen to their programmes;

I fear a population that has become so controlled, it will attack and condemn law-abiding citizens who make medical choices they disagree with;

most of all, I fear that we are quickly approaching the point of no return where so many of our children will be so damaged by vaccines and pharmaceutical medicines (1 in 6 is now learning disabled, 1 in 50 is autistic and 1 in 2 is suffering from at least one chronic illness) and you will see that our current generation of adults may well be the last one that will be able to think, act or decide for themselves about anything at all.

God help the human race as it travels down this path. May it find the courage and fortitude to fight for its rights – indeed, for its very soul – before it is too late.

by Meryl Dorey

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

They say it’s a woman’s prerogative. Making one decision and then, down the track, changing your mind. But everyone does it and it’s not necessarily a bad thing either.

Think about those words – changing your mind.

Taken literally, they may sound a bit strange. They conjure up a scene of someone – an artist, perhaps, carving out a brain from hard wood and then, deciding at the last minute that something’s gone wrong and it might need a little bit of work here or there. A few hits with the hammer and chisel, being careful not to break it and have to start again.

That’s how my strange mind works and what I’ve visualised 🙂 But changing your mind is one of the many, many idioms that make the English language so difficult for non-native speakers to learn.

When it comes to vaccination, I started to change my mind 26 years ago.

Like many parents, I didn’t just decide blithely one day to stop vaccinating my son or my subsequent children. It wasn’t like taking my clothes out of the closet and deciding that the red top looked better with those pants than the blue one. I changed my mind because I saw that vaccines had hurt my child and, like most people who were trying to be the best parent they could, seeing that harm and having it confirmed by my doctor (who told me that he would leave out the whooping cough portion of my son’s next shot – something that isn’t even possible today!) made me start to search for more information about these shots I was giving my son.

And I didn’t change my mind that day or that month – or even that year.

Trying to be a responsible parent, I couldn’t decide until I had enough information about what I was doing.

In retrospect, I should have put off any further vaccines until I was fully informed, but the default position back in the late 1980s/early 1990s was to vaccinate so, I did.

It wasn’t until my son was hospitalised 10 days after his MMR vaccine (the most common time for certain reactions following that particular shot, as I found out later on through my research) that I decided enough was enough. And even then, I didn’t have enough information to stop vaccinating my children completely. My daughter received 3 DT (diphtheria and tetanus) and OPV (oral polio) vaccines and my next son got 3 OPVs. My youngest child is the only one who is completely unvaccinated.

By the time she came along, I had gathered together enough information and done enough research to completely ‘change my mind’ about vaccination. By then, my husband and I had both knowledge and confidence about our decision – it was a good place to be!

Many parents have stories that echo ours. Nearly everyone I know who started out totally committed to vaccinating (or just going along with it because it was the default position) but who stopped at some point, changed their mind because of either personal experience with vaccine reactions, reactions in a friend or family member or exposure to information that made them question and want to know more.

I am very proud of the fact that some of these people were able to find the information they needed because of the existence of the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), the organisation I started way back in 1994. The AVN had and has many sister organisations:

and the group started by Kerry Hamblin in the Blue Mountains in the 1980s that pre-dated all of the others and whose name escapes me (if anyone remembers, please let me know and if I’ve left any organisations off, I apologise – let me know and I will amend this).

When I originally had my change of mind, the internet was not as easily accessible as it is today. I got my information the old fashioned way – I visited medical libraries, copied medical journal articles, took them home and sat with my highlighter pen and read them through. I went to the medical library in Princeton, New Jersey. I visited the Library of Congress for one amazing day of obsessive reading, photocopying and research. I remember being afraid that those articles would weigh so much, I wouldn’t be able to take them home with me to Australia!

How times have changed. What used to take me hours and a lot of money at 10 cents a page to photocopy, is now nearly instant and free.

The AVN’s library contains hundreds of books and tens of thousands of journal articles dating back to the early part of the twentieth century – and even further back when it comes to the smallpox vaccine.

I – like most parents who have changed their minds about vaccination, nutrition and medical treatments – made my decision after a lot of thought and a lot of discussions with health professionals and natural therapists about these issues. I took my responsibility seriously.

And yes, like the artist in my earlier thoughts who changed the direction of his carving in hard wood with great difficulty, it was not easy for me to change my path or for my husband to do the same. We were your classic ‘true believers’ like most of our generation.

A belief and trust in doctors was hard-wired into our consciousness through years of medical shows, government pronouncements and social conditioning. But once we were empowered through our own research to understand that we could change our minds, the veil was torn away and we were able to see this situation clearly for what it was – a mass delusion that was built on quicksand and that needed bullying and lies to shore it up and keep it from sinking away forever.

If you are like I was – a true believer in vaccine safety, effectiveness and necessity – challenge yourself to read a bit about the other side of this issue. You may never change your mind or your beliefs, but at least you will come to understand that those of us who stopped vaccinating made that choice with valid information and out of love for our children. Understanding can overcome fear and hatred and right now, there is way too much fear and hatred going around regarding the issue of vaccination.

By Meryl Dorey

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

I have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn and Flickr. They take a bit of time, but I’ve felt that the investment was worth it for the gain received.

News tends to come out very quickly on these venues, so I have stayed on the very cutting edge of updates about vaccination, health and politics. I’ve also liaised with activists around the world in ways that just don’t seem to happen in other venues. We’ve strategised, supported each other and instantly shared information, local events and vaccination and other personal data.

It’s been marvellous!

But it’s also lulled me into a false sense of action.

Armchair warrior

From the comfort of my own chair, I’ve gotten to the end of the day feeling like I’ve accomplished so much when in fact, all I’ve done is talk (and virtual talk at that!)

You see, getting onto social media and saying rah, rah, rah! You’re right and what the government is doing is wrong, makes me feel better; makes me feel like I’m part of the solution; but if that’s all I do, it accomplishes nothing.

Social media has so many benefits, but one of its downsides – and perhaps one of the many reasons why participation in these outlets is openly encouraged by so many businesses and governments (aside from the purposes of data mining and financial gain) is that it keeps ‘the masses’ complacent. It makes us feel like we are participating in the issues we feel passionate about when really, all we’re doing is sending out a bunch of ‘me too’ posts that might make us and the post-recipients feel good, but do nothing to remedy any problems or right any wrongs.

These outlets are a tyrannical government’s dream! Yes, on the one hand, they do allow us to share information quickly, efficiently and with little government interference (Twitter and Facebook being the notable exceptions with censorship and algorithm fiddling constantly suppressing anti-government and anti-corporate interest posts), but on the other hand, they keep us in front of our computers and off the street.

Civil disobedience and protests before social media

An artist’s depiction of the Leicester anti-compulsory vaccination protest of 1885 which saw up to 100,000 people marching against compulsory shots.

In the mid-1800s when the UK Parliament first passed compulsory vaccination legislation, without any media or social media, England organised massive protests which were eventually successful at overturning that draconian legislation which, like today’s No Jab, No Pay laws, unfairly targeted those on lower incomes whilst not touching the wealthy.

In the Leicester rally of 1885, as many as 100,000 people marched in protest to these laws – 100,000 people who found out about the protest and got off their arses to publicly protest against government overreach!

Rallies in Sydney, Brisbane and other capital cities last year – with all the benefits of media and social media – only attracted a maximum of 1,000 individuals in each location – far less the second time around.

Why is this? Why is it so difficult today to get people out of their houses to physically attend protests against injustices which, if allowed to continue, may harm or even kill us? Why are we so unwilling to show up, even when we know that NOT showing up will appear to uninformed outsiders to indicate tacit approval or even support of these laws?

I believe that social media is one of the reasons.

After speaking with many people who fully intended to come to these anti-No Jab, No Pay rallies last year, but who never actually got there, a single theme appeared. I have paraphrased some of the reasons below:

1- I was busy, but I did share it with my friends on Facebook.

2- I was afraid to come, but I emailed a couple of people. Did they turn up?

3- I am SO behind this event, but I just couldn’t make it. I put it out on Twitter and I’m sure lots of my friends would have been there.

4- Great event! Would have loved to have come. I support it 100%. Saw it on Pinterest and did share it with a few friends who I know are on side. Didn’t want to have any blowback from my other friends though.

All of these people believed they were supporting the events and the cause. In their heart, they were actively involved in advancing informed choice because they shared information on social media. Don’t get me wrong – sharing is VERY important, but it will take so much more than that to overturn discriminatory legislation; to change the minds of an uninformed public, to make Australians understand how wrong it is to coerce parents into doing something to their child that is not (according to the parents) in their best interests.

It takes action – physical action.

It takes letter writing – not just emailing.

It takes protests where tens of thousands turn up.

It takes people getting outside of their comfort zones to speak with friends, family and associates and explain why they support free and informed health choice.

If, like me, you have been a keyboard warrior who hasn’t gotten out much of late, don’t despair! That false sense of action hasn’t been a complete loss. Sharing information and support is one plank in a vital effort to raise the consciousness of Australians everywhere about the dangers facing them, their families and their basic, inalienable human rights.

But it is just ONE plank. There is so much more that needs to be done.

Social media can be instrumental in advancing causes and achieving goals. It has brought down governments and informed the world. Without social media, the Arab Spring never would have happened. While it may have started on Twitter, it was only successful because people got out and marched and protested in their hundreds of thousands. We are missing that important final step.

I am going overseas for a few months shortly and won’t be back until early 2017 (2017? How did that happen?????) When I do, I pledge to be more present, more active and more vocal about these issues.

I pledge to do more seminars, provide more information both on and offline and write more letters to politicians and to the editors. I pledge to call more talkback radio stations and speak to more people – both friends and strangers – about why I believe in health freedom (in appropriate circumstances of course – I’m not just going to walk up to complete strangers and say, Hey, do you vaccinate?)

Will you join me?

Please don’t stop your social media chatter – it’s important. But don’t feel that it’s the be-all and end-all. When the call comes to go to a seminar or a protest march or to visit your members of Parliament, please do it! Be there in the flesh – and make your voices heard.

I would love to hear what you think about this. Please make comments on this blog post.

by Meryl Dorey

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

For the last few weeks, both myself and the AVN have been receiving a steady stream of emails and phone calls from parents who are in panic mode because they have received letters from Centrelink implying they would be losing their fortnightly Family Tax Benefit payments because their children are not vaccinated according to schedule. The wording of these letters is, to my way of thinking, intentionally deceptive and misleading.

Of course, the two payments that are at risk are the Family Tax Benefit Part A Supplement (a once-a-year payment for low-income families) and the Childcare Benefit. The regular fortnightly Tax Benefit is not at risk regardless of whether a person vaccinates fully, selectively or not at all.

The email I received today (below), however, brings the level of deception described in the Centrelink letters to a new and previously unplumbed low.

Hi,

My son and his wife had decided not to vaccinate their children. They now have a 4 year old and 5 year old. Even when the no jab no pay came in, they stuck to their decision.

My daughter in law was talking to Centrelink Qld and was told if she didn’t have the children vaccinated that as from July this year, they will loose all benefits and will have to pay back everything, back to the children’s birth – even the baby bonus. Also, they would be fined according to their income.

As they are now separated, (friendly separation) this would created a big financial burden on them. They are feeling very trapped and were frightened into having the first round of injections. They were also being pushed into having all the missed vaccinations done in the next 2 months which even their doctor questioned.

They have not followed this suggestion.

Is this information correct or was it just a Centrelink employee using scare tactics and giving false information?I hope you can throw some light on this, it seems rather brutal and controlling but then blackmail is, isn’t it?

Of course, the Centrelink staffer told these parents an amazing number of lies.

Parents will NOT have to pay Centrelink back benefits from the birth of their child – or at all.

They do NOT have to return the baby bonus and,

There is NO fine in the legislation for those who don’t vaccinate.

This is just a petty bureaucrat who wants to use their power to intimidate and scare innocent parents. They should lose their job at the very least – be subject to prosecution or fines themselves in a fair and just system.

Has this happened to you?

Has anyone else has a similar situation with Centrelink or any other government departments lying to them about their rights surrounding No Jab, No Pay or any other vaccine-related issues?

If so, please send me an email relating what happened. It is also very important to file an official complaint (every department has their own complaints resolution office – if you need help finding this information, I will be happy to assist you) about your experience. This is for your sake as much as for the sake of others who will be faced with the same misinformation and may be forced to do something they would not otherwise have considered – with potentially tragic results.

Hold the government and their minions to account. They have no right nor any mandate to lie to anyone – especially not if those lies may cause harm to an innocent child.

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

This information and the graphs included are excerpted from Mr Beattie’s latest book. It demonstrates very clearly that a true sceptic will not necessarily believe in headlines such as “Measles deaths in Africa plunge by 91%” without seeing the proof of those claims. Question everything – accept nothing at face value – that is the credo of the true sceptic.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.Bertrand Russell

There have been many versions on the theme; the percentage rates have changed over time. However, the bodies of the stories leave us in no doubt as to the reason for their headlines. Here are some direct quotes:

In a rare public health success story on the world’s most beleaguered continent, Africa has slashed deaths from measles by 91 per cent since 2000 thanks to an immunization drive.

An ambitious global immunization drive has cut measles deaths…

Measles deaths in Africa have fallen as child vaccination rates have risen.

These stories represent a modern-day version of the belief that vaccines vanquished the killer diseases of the past. There is something deeply disturbing about the stories, and it is not immediately apparent. The fact is: no-one knows how many people died of measles in Africa. No-one! Not last year and not ten years ago.

I will repeat that. No-one knows how many measles deaths have occurred in Africa. So, where did these figures come from? I will explain that in this blog. In a nutshell, they were calculated on a spreadsheet, using a formula. You may be surprised when you see how simple the method was.

We all believe these stories, because we have no reason to doubt them. The only people who would have questioned them were those who were aware that the deaths had not been counted. One of these was World Health Organisation (WHO) head of Health Evidence and Statistics, who reprimanded the authors of the original report (on which the stories were based) in an editorial published in the Bulletin of the WHO, as I will discuss shortly. Unfortunately, by then the train was already runaway. The stories had taken off virally through the worldwide media.

Overview

First, an overview of the formula. The authors looked at it this way: for every million vaccines given out, we hope to save ‘X’ lives. From that premise, we simply count how many million vaccines we gave out, and multiply that by ‘X’ to calculate how many lives (we think) we have saved. That is how the figures were arrived at.

The stories and the formula are both products of a deep belief in the power of vaccines. We think the stories report facts, but instead they report hopes.

The nuts and bolts

Hardly any of the willing participants in spreading the stories bothered to check where the figures came from, and what they meant. That was possibly understandable. Why would we need to check them? After all, they were produced by experts: respected researchers, and reputable organisations such as UNICEF, American Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, and the World Health Organisation.

However, I did check them. I checked because I knew the developing world wasn’t collecting cause of death data that could provide such figures[3]. In fact, it is currently estimated that only 25 million of the 60 million deaths that occur each year are even registered, let alone have reliable cause-of-death information[4]. Sub-Saharan Africa, where a large proportion of measles deaths are thought to occur, still had an estimated death registration of only around 10%[5] in 2006, and virtually no reliable cause-of-death data. Even sample demographic surveys, although considered accurate, were not collecting cause-of-death data that allowed for these figures to be reported. Simply put, this was not real data: the figures had to be estimates.

I was curious as to how the estimates were arrived at, so I traced back to the source—an article in The Lancet, written by a team from the Measles Initiative[6]. After reading the article, I realised the reports were not measles deaths at all. They were planning estimates, or predictions. In other words, they represented outcomes that the Measles Initiative had hoped to achieve, through conducting vaccination programs.

Don’t get me wrong. We all know that planning and predicting are very useful, even necessary activities, but it is obvious they are not the same as measuring outcomes.

The title of the original report from the Measles Initiative reads, “Has the 2005 measles mortality reduction goal been achieved? A natural history modelling study.”[7] The authors took one and a half pages to explain how natural history modelling applied here. I will simplify it in about ten lines. I realise that in doing so, some may accuse me of editorial vandalism, however I assure you what follows captures the essence of the method. The rest is detail. If you are interested in confirming this, I urge you to read the original article for that detail. Here we go… the formula at the heart of the stories:

My interpretation of the Measles Natural History Modelling Study

Open a blank spreadsheet

Enter population data for each year from 2000 to 2006

Enter measles vaccine coverage for each of the years also

Assume all people develop measles if not vaccinated

Assume vaccination prevents 85-95% of measles cases

Calculate how many measles cases were ‘prevented’ each year (using the above figures)

Calculate how many measles deaths were ‘prevented’ each year (using historical case-fatality ratios)

There, simple. As you can see, this is a typical approach if we are modelling,for predictive purposes. Using a spreadsheet to predict outcomes of various plans helps us set targets, and develop strategies. When it comes to evaluating the result of our plan however we need to go out into the field, and measure what happened. We must never simply return to the same spreadsheet. But this is precisely what the Measles Initiative team did. And the publishing world swallowed it—hook, line and sinker.

As mentioned earlier, WHO Health Evidence and Statistics head, Dr Kenji Shibuya, saw the problem with this method. Writing editorially in the Bulletin of the WHO, under the title “Decide monitoring strategies before setting targets”, Shibuya had this to say[8]:

…the assessment of a recent change in measles mortality from vaccination is mostly based on statistics predicted from a set of covariates… It is understandable that estimating causes of death over time is a difficult task. However, that is no reason for us to avoid measuring it when we can also measure the quantity of interest directly; otherwise the global health community would continue to monitor progress on a spreadsheet with limited empirical basis. This is simply not acceptable. [emphasis mine]

This mismatch was created partly by the demand for more timely statistics …and partly by a lack of data and effective measurement strategies among statistics producers. Users must be realistic, as annual data on representative cause-specific mortality are difficult to obtain without complete civil registration or sample registration systems

If such data are needed, the global health community must seek indicators that are valid, reliable and comparable, and must invest in data collection (e.g. adjusting facility-based data by using other representative data sources).

Regardless of new disease-specific initiatives or the broader WHO Strategic Objectives, the key is to focus on a small set of relevant indicators for which well defined strategies for monitoring progress are available. Only by doing so will the global health community be able to show what works and what fails.

In simple terms, Shibuya was saying:

We know it is difficult to estimate measles deaths, but

You should have tried, because you attracted a lot of interest

Instead, you simply went back to the same spreadsheet you used to make the plan—and that is unacceptable!

If you want to make a claim about your results, you need to measure the outcomes and collect valid data

Until you do, you cannot say whether your plan ‘worked’

Unfortunately, by the time Shibuya’s editorial was published, the media had already been trumpeting the stories for more than a year, because the Measles Initiative announced its news to a waiting media before subjecting it to peer-review. So, without scientific scrutiny, the stories were unleashed into a world hungry for good news, especially concerning the developing world. The result… the reports were welcomed, accepted, and regurgitated to a degree where official scrutiny now seems to have the effect of a drop in a bucket.

The question of who was responsible for this miscarriage of publishing justice plagued me for a while. Was it the architects of the original report? Or was it the robotic section of our media (that part that exists because of a lack of funds for employing real journalists) who spread the message virally to every corner of the globe, without checking it?

One quote which really stands out in the stories is from former director of the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

“The clear message from this achievement is that the strategy works,” said CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding

What strategy works? Is she talking about modelling on a spreadsheet? Or, using the predictions in place of real outcomes? More recent reports from the Measles Initiative indicate the team are continuing with this deceptive approach. In their latest report[10] it is estimated 12.7 million deaths were averted between 2000-2008. All were calculated on their spreadsheet, and all were attributed to vaccination, for the simple reason that it was the only variable on the spreadsheet that was under their control. And still there is no scrutiny of the claims. Furthermore, the authors make no effort to clarify in the public mind that the figures are nothing but planning estimates.

No proof

Supporters of vaccination might argue that this does not prove vaccines are of no use. I agree. In fact,let me say it first: none of this provides any evidence whatsoever of the value of vaccination. That is the crux of the matter. The media stories have trumpeted the success of the plan, and given us all a pat on the back for making it happen. But the stories are fabrications. The only aspect of them which is factual is that which tells us vaccination rates have increased.

Some ‘real’ good-news?

General mortality rates in Africa are going down. That means deaths from all causesare reducing. How do we know this? Because an inter-agency group, led by UNICEF and WHO, has been evaluating demographic survey data in countries that do not have adequate death registration data. These surveys have been going on for more than 50 years. One of the reasons they do this is to monitor trends in mortality; particularly infant, and under-five mortality.

Although the health burden in developing countries is inequitably high, there is reason to be positive when we view these trends. Deaths are declining and, according to the best available estimates, have been steadily doing so for a considerable time; well over 50 years.

One of the most useful indicators of a country’s health transition is its under-5 mortality rate: that is, the death rate for children below five years old. The best estimates available for Africa show a steady decline in under-5 mortality rate, of around 1.8% per year, since 1950[11]. Figure 1 shows this decline from 1960 onward[12]. It also shows the infant mortality rate[13]. Both are plotted as averages of all countries in the WHO region of Africa.

Figure 1. Child mortality, Africa

This graph may appear complex, but it is not difficult to read. The two thick lines running horizontally through the graph are the infant (the lower blue line) and under-5 (the upper black line) mortality rates per 1000 from 1960 to 2009. The handful of finer lines which commence in 1980, at a low point, and shoot upward over the following decade, represent the introduction of the various vaccines. The vertical scale on the right side of the graph shows the rate at which children were vaccinated with each of these shots.

The primary purpose of this graph (as well as that in Figure 2) is to deliver the real good-news. We see a slowly, but steadily improving situation. Death rates for infants and young children are declining. I decided to add the extra lines (for vaccines) to illustrate that they appear to have had no impact on the declining childhood mortality rates; at least, not a positive impact. If they were as useful as we have been led to believe, these vaccines (covering seven illnesses) would surely have resulted in a sharp downward deviation from the established trend. As we can see, this did not occur.

In Africa, the vaccines were introduced at the start of the 1980s and, within a decade, reached more than half the children. The only effect observable in the mortality rates, is a slowing of the downward trend. In other words, if anything were to be drawn from this, it would be that the introduction of the vaccines was counter-productive. One could argue that the later increase in vaccine coverage (after the year 2000) was followed by a return to the same decline observed prior to the vaccines. However, that does not line up. The return to the prior decline predates it, by around five years.

With both interpretations we are splitting hairs. Since we are discussing an intervention that has been marketed as a modern miracle, we should see a marked effect on the trend. We don’t.

The WHO region of Africa (also referred to as sub-Saharan Africa) is where a substantial portion of the world’s poor-health burden is thought to exist. The country that is believed to share the majority of worldwide child mortality burden with sub-Saharan Africa is India, in the WHO south-east Asia region. Together, the African and South-east Asian regions were thought in 1999 to bear 85% of the world’s measles deaths[14]. Figure 2 shows India’s declining infant and under-5 mortality rates, over the past 50 years. Again, the introduction of various vaccines is also shown.

Figure 2. Child mortality, India

And again, vaccines do not appear to have contributed. Mortality rates simply continued their steady decline. We commenced mass vaccination (for seven illnesses) from the late 1980s but there was no visible impact on the child mortality trends.

In a nutshell, what happened in the developed world is still happening in the yet-to-finish-developing world, only it started later, and is taking longer. The processes of providing clean water, good nourishment, adequate housing, education and employment, freedom from poverty, as well as proper care of the sick, have been on-going in poor countries.

I would have loved to go back further in time with these graphs but unfortunately I was not able to locate the data. I did uncover one graph in an issue of the Bulletin of the WHO, showing the under-5 mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa to be an estimated 350 in 1950[15]. It subsequently dropped to around 175 by 1980, before vaccines figured. It continued dropping, though slower, to 129 by 2008[16].

The decline represents a substantial health transition, and a lot of lives saved. When cause-of-death data improves, or at least some genuine effort is made to establish credible estimates of measles deaths, it will undoubtedly be found they are dropping as well. Why wouldn’t they? This is good news, and all praise needs to be directed at the architects and supporters of the international activities that are helping to achieve improvements in the real determinants of health. In the midst of all the hype, I trust we will not swallow attempts to give the credit to vaccines… again.

I am not confident, however. I feel this is simply history repeating itself. Deaths from infectious disease will reach an acceptable “low” in developing countries, at some point in time. And although this will probably be due to a range of improvements in poverty, sanitation, nutrition and education, I feel vaccines will be given the credit. To support the claim, numerous pieces of evidence will be paraded, such as:

Measles Deaths In Africa Plunge By 91%

We need to purge these pieces of “evidence” if we are to have rational discussion. The public have a right to know that these reports are based on fabricated figures. Otherwise, the relative importance of vaccines in future health policy will be further exaggerated.

[6] Launched in 2001, the Measles Initiative is an international partnership committed to reducing measles deaths worldwide, and led by the American Red Cross, CDC, UNICEF, United Nations Foundation, and WHO. Additional information available at http://www.measlesinitiative.org

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

TOPEKA, Kan. – The Kansas Court of Appeals says a food manufacturer can deny unemployment benefits to a former employee who objected to eating the company’s junk food products.

The appeals panel affirmed a lower court ruling dismissing the case of Jane Doe who had been a front-office staffer at the XYZ Food Services Corporation for the last 3 years.

In 2013, Jane objected to eating the junk foods manufactured by XYZ, claiming that they made her ill.

She was later fired and applied for unemployment benefits, which XYZ fought, saying she wasn’t eligible.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the appeals panel said Doe had a duty to her company to either eat their foods or stop working there. The ruling said Doe’s failure to comply amounted to job-related misconduct “and thus disqualified her for unemployment benefits.”

Sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it?

Then read the original article at this link to see how crazy the situation really is:

The sound was tiny. So small, my brother in law, Charles, wasn’t even sure he had heard it. His wife, my sister Rhonda, was profoundly deaf, so she was no help in this particular matter.

This was nearly 40 years ago. They were both on their way to work and had made their usual trip down to the parking garage in the basement of their apartment building to make the 1 1/2 hour journey to Midtown Manhattan where they worked.

Charles wasn’t even sure he’d heard anything, but there was something wrong, he knew it. He walked around the garage, listening intently and finally, stopped in front of a drain pipe in the far corner. A soft, sad sound could barely be heard above the banging of water pumps and the roar of the central heating units.

Crouching down, Charles pulled a bit of wire away from the bottom of the pipe and out plopped 4 or 5 furry little bodies – all of them unmoving except for one. A small black kitten who was so weak from hunger and illness, he could barely move or make all but the most pitifully tiny sounds.

But my brother-in-law, who had an abiding love for cats, had heard this little one’s pleas.

Domino, the name they gave the kitten – as much from his colouring (all black with a flash of white on his toes and face) as from the lucky roll of the dice that had brought him to them – was near death. My sister and Charles took him to the vet where he was treated for worms, an infection, mites in his ears and other parasites in his fur. It was touch and go for a while.

They took him home and nursed him and within a matter of weeks, he was a hale and hearty cat who reveled in affection and drove their other cat – a rather spoiled Siamese named Cinderella, to distraction with his antics.

Why am I telling you this story now?

Perhaps I’m drawing a bit of a long bow, but I have been thinking about Domino over and over again for the past few days. How close he had come to death and how his tiny, little weak voice managed to gain the attention of Charles over all the surrounding noises and against all odds. And how that voice – weak nearly to the point of death – eventually saved his life – and a long and happy life it was too.

Our movement was been a bit like Domino.

Everywhere around us, we are surrounded by extraneous noises that threaten to cut off our access to the very people who could – literally or figuratively – save the lives of our children and ourselves. Our message is being drowned out – quite intentionally – by those who through fear, greed or hatred – believe that our message does not deserve to be heard or might be too dangerous to their bottom line should it get out into the public.

If it isn’t the government telling us they will penalise those least able to survive through No Jab, No Pay, or saying that our healthy, unvaccinated children aren’t entitled to an early childhood education via No Jab, No Play, it is corporate bullies threatening to remove sponsorship from a film festival if they don’t censor a video that tells the truth about the vaccine – autism connection.

Our movement had been seriously weakened by this constant battle. Many of our siblings – the other groups that have fought so hard and so bravely – succumbed to fatigue and fell away. But many more of us are still here, staying the course. And we have been offered a second chance.

Rising from the ashes – against all odds

We were near death – our cries for health freedom and respect for basic human rights were, for the most part, unheard.

Then, the unthinkable happened. The government and their corporate masters became so evil and repressive, through their actions, they galvinised support for health freedom – even from amongst those of us who would not normally be involved in this issue.

Through their fascist behaviour, the government has betrayed and alienated a large minority of the population. They destroyed the social contract we have always relied upon between those who govern and those who elect.

They have abused and vilified a law-abiding segment of the community and encouraged others to do so as well.

Through discriminatory legislation like No Jab, No Pay in Australia and SB-277 in California, they effectively took away the rights, the voice and the sense of community and belonging of a large and growing proportion of the population.

Instead of listening to what citizens and health professionals had to say about vaccination, the government ignored our voices. The only sounds they seemed capable of hearing were the voices of the multi-national corporations who profit from continued illness and enslavement to their products.

From great repression comes a rebirth of freedom

Through their dictatorial and draconian measures, the government here and abroad has done what the entire health-freedom movement could not do in decades of trying – they have unified the broader community around a single goal – saving the rights, the freedoms and in some cases, the very lives of those who believe that when it comes to health, parents and individuals must ALWAYS have the final say about what procedures they will and won’t accept.

The people supporting these groups will never feel the same about their government or their country again. Their belief and trust in the government has been irreparably damaged.

Hundreds of ‘old’ supporters have come back on board, offering to help with their time, their money and their willing hearts. Our depression has begun to turn into cautious optimism.

Then, the real breakthrough occurred – thousands of new supporters stepped forward and amongst them, many, many people who have chosen to vaccinate their children but who wholeheartedly support our right to say no for our own families.

The parable of Domino

Though Domino has been gone for many years, his story is the one I think of when considering the state of vaccination choice in Australia and around the world today. From weakness to strength, we have come full circle and we will prevail.

Though the fight will be hard and wearying, while we have the support of such a broad base within the community, and the knowledge that our goal is a just and truthful one, a victorious outcome is assured.

Never doubt it.

by Meryl Dorey

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

A very active and lively discussion has been taking place on the Prime Minister’s Facebook page regarding the No Jab, No Pay law. I made several posts in response to Dr Patrick Stokes – a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy who supports censorship when it comes to vaccination as evidenced by his article on TheConversation entitled:No, You’re Not Entitled to Your Opinion.

Dr Stokes is an Australian academic who readily admits that he is not an authority on the this issue. Furthermore, he openly states that he does not WANT to know about the science of vaccination, instead claiming that everyone should defer to doctors and health authorities because they are the only ones capable of understanding the subject. Please read his statement below:

Is the PM Censoring Debate?

Getting back to the Prime Minister’s Facebook page, as I said, I was having a lively debate with Mr Stokes about the issue of vaccination. I prepared a comment in response to his repetition of the fact that he does not know anything about vaccination and does not believe the issue should be publicly debated. When I tried to post my response, however, I got a warning that there was a problem and I should try later. This was yesterday afternoon and I have tried 4 times now and each time, I get the same warning.

Since there are plenty of new comments on this page, including many casting aspersions on my honesty, integrity and intelligence, I can only assume that I have been blocked. Fair go, Malcolm or whoever you have delegated to moderate your page! Are you afraid that yourwife’s profits at Prima BioMed (profits that jumped to AUD $5.5 million mere weeks after No Jab No Pay legislation was announced) might be affected if enough people start to question vaccination? Valid fear, that – but is that a reason to silence opponents of government policies? Do we live in a democracy or not, Mr Turnbull? Or are the Australian people no more than cash cows (cash vaccas, the origin of the word ‘vaccination’, appropriately enough?) to you and your government?

Think about it for a minute. NSW Premiere, Barry O’Farrell resigned over the gift of a bottle of wine; then Prime Minister, Paul Keating, scandalised the nation when it was discovered that he had profited from the sale of a piggery to Indonesia whilst undertaking trade negotiations with that country; and former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd’s wife, Therese Rein, was forced to sell the Australian division of her international employment agency when her husband was elected due to contracts the company had with the Australian Government.

Australia has a long history of holding its elected representatives accountable when there is even a hint of corruption or profiteering – yet the current PM’s wife is Chairman of the Board of a company involved in vaccination and other pharmaceutical pursuits whose value has increased dramatically due – at least on the surface in my own opinion – to policies which her husband has helped push through Parliament. Did Mr Turnbull excuse himself during the debate on No Jab No Pay? Did he tell Parliament that he had a conflict of interest and excuse himself from the vote on this legislation? These are genuine questions – I don’t know the answer and my investigations so far have not been fruitful. Despite the apparent conflict of interest, not a word has been raised about this in the media or by the opposition.

I guess when it comes to vaccination, carte blanche is always given to those who support the procedure and a blind eye will be turned if there is any question of propriety or what is right for the nation.

But I digress.

Before I was unceremoniously booted from the PM’s Facebook page, I had issued a challenge to debate the benefits and risks of vaccination at a public venue. My challenge stands – if anyone from the medical industry, pharma or government believes that they can publicly support vaccine safety and effectiveness, I will gladly meet you in a fair debate with a neutral compere.

For those who would like to see my response to Patrick Stokes, here it is.

@Patrick Stokes – if I have no expertise on this subject (and by your own admission, you are neither qualified nor interested enough to learn about what you discuss when it comes to vaccination), then it should be simple to prove it. Not debating me or anyone else from the pro-information side of the issue is simply a ruse.

And here are just a few recent studies that HAVE been published on the ineffectiveness and risks of vaccination. Maybe you need to get someone more qualified to read them for you and tell you what they say?

BMJ. 2014 Jun 24;348:g3668. doi: 10.1136/bmj.g3668.

Whooping cough in school age children presenting with persistent cough in UK primary care after introduction of the preschool pertussis booster vaccination: prospective cohort study.

Objective To estimate the prevalence and clinical severity of whooping cough (pertussis) in school age children presenting with persistent cough in primary care since the introduction and implementation of the preschool pertussis booster vaccination.

Design Prospective cohort study (November 2010 to December 2012).

Setting General practices in Thames Valley, UK.

Participants 279 children aged 5 to 15 years who presented in primary care with a persistent cough of two to eight weeks’ duration. Exclusion criteria were cough likely to be caused by a serious underlying medical condition, known immunodeficiency or immunocompromise, participation in another clinical research study, and preschool pertussis booster vaccination received less than one year previously.

Main outcome measures Evidence of recent pertussis infection based on an oral fluid anti-pertussis toxin IgG titre of at least 70 arbitrary units. Cough frequency was measured in six children with laboratory confirmed pertussis.

Results 56 (20%, 95% confidence interval 16% to 25%) children had evidence of recent pertussis infection, including 39 (18%, 13% to 24%) of 215 children who had been fully vaccinated. The risk of pertussis was more than three times higher (21/53; 40%, 26% to 54%) in children who had received the preschool pertussis booster vaccination seven years or more previously than in those who had received it less than seven years previously (20/171; 12%, 7% to 17%). The risk of pertussis was similar between children who received five and three component preschool pertussis booster vaccines (risk ratio for five component vaccine 1.14, 0.64 to 2.03). Four of six children in whom cough frequency was measured coughed more than 400 times in 24 hours.

Conclusions Pertussis can still be found in a fifth of school age children who present in primary care with persistent cough and can cause clinically significant cough in fully vaccinated children. These findings will help to inform consideration of the need for an adolescent pertussis booster vaccination in the United Kingdom.

Clin Infect Dis. (2012) doi: 10.1093/cid/cis287

Unexpectedly Limited Durability of Immunity Following Acellular Pertussis Vaccination in Pre-Adolescents in a North American Outbreak

Results We identified 171 cases of clinical pertussis; 132 in pediatric patients. There was a notable increase in cases in patients aged 8-12. The rate of testing peaked in infants, but remained relatively constant until age 12. The rate of positive tests was low for ages zero to six, and increased in preadolescents, peaking at age 12. Vaccination rates of PCR positive preadolescents were approximately equal to that of controls. Vaccine Effectiveness was 41%, 24%, 79%, for ages 2-7, 8-12, 13-18, respectively.

Conclusions Our data suggests that the current schedule of acellular pertussis vaccine doses is insufficient to prevent outbreaks of pertussis. We noted a markedly increased rate of disease from age 8 through 12, proportionate to the interval since the last scheduled vaccine. Stable rates of testing ruled out selection bias. The possibility of earlier or more numerous booster doses of acellular pertussis vaccine either as part of routine immunization or for outbreak control should be entertained.

This is not a peer-reviewed study, but it speaks to the fact that drug companies control the information governments rely upon to make policy decisions. It is written in plain English.

Merck, the pharmaceutical giant, is facing a slew of controversies over its Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine following numerous allegations of wrongdoing from different parties in the medical field, including two former Merck scientists-turned-whistleblowers. A third whistleblower, this one a scientist at the Centers for Disease Control, also promises to bring Merck grief following his confession of misconduct involving the same MMR vaccine.

The controversies will find Merck defending itself and its vaccine in at least two federal court cases after a U.S. District judge earlier this month threw out Merck’s attempts at dismissal. Merck now faces federal charges of fraud from the whistleblowers, a vaccine competitor and doctors in New Jersey and New York. Merck could also need to defend itself in Congress: The staff of representative Bill Posey (R-Fla) — a longstanding critic of the CDC interested in an alleged link between vaccines and autism — is now reviewing some 1,000 documents that the CDC whistleblower turned over to them.

The first court case, United States v. Merck & Co., stems from claims by two former Merck scientists that Merck “fraudulently misled the government and omitted, concealed, and adulterated material information regarding the efficacy of its mumps vaccine in violation of the FCA [False Claims Act].”

According to the whistleblowers’ court documents, Merck’s misconduct was far-ranging: It “failed to disclose that its mumps vaccine was not as effective as Merck represented, (ii) used improper testing techniques, (iii) manipulated testing methodology, (iv) abandoned undesirable test results, (v) falsified test data, (vi) failed to adequately investigate and report the diminished efficacy of its mumps vaccine, (vii) falsely verified that each manufacturing lot of mumps vaccine would be as effective as identified in the labeling, (viii) falsely certified the accuracy of applications filed with the FDA, (ix) falsely certified compliance with the terms of the CDC purchase contract, (x) engaged in the fraud and concealment describe herein for the purpose of illegally monopolizing the U.S. market for mumps vaccine, (xi) mislabeled, misbranded, and falsely certified its mumps vaccine, and (xii) engaged in the other acts described herein to conceal the diminished efficacy of the vaccine the government was purchasing.” (Click the above link to read the rest of this article).

And here, a release from that rabidly anti-vaccine body, the American College of Pediatrics:

The American College of Pediatricians (The College) is committed to the health and well-being of children, including prevention of disease by vaccines. It has recently come to the attention of the College that one of the recommended vaccines could possibly be associated with the very rare but serious condition of premature ovarian failure (POF), also known as premature menopause. There have been two case report series (3 cases each) published since 2013 in which post-menarcheal adolescent girls developed laboratory documented POF within weeks to several years of receiving Gardasil, a four-strain human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV4).1,2 Adverse events that occur after vaccines are frequently not caused by the vaccine and there has not been a noticeable rise in POF cases in the last 9 years since HPV4 vaccine has been widely used.

Nevertheless there are legitimate concerns that should be addressed: (1) long-term ovarian function was not assessed in either the original rat safety studies3,4 or in the human vaccine trials, (2) most primary care physicians are probably unaware of a possible association between HPV4 and POF and may not consider reporting POF cases or prolonged amenorrhea (missing menstrual periods) to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), (3) potential mechanisms of action have been postulated based on autoimmune associations with the aluminum adjuvant used1 and previously documented ovarian toxicity in rats from another component, polysorbate 80,2 and (4) since licensure of Gardasil® in 2006, there have been about 213 VAERS reports (per the publicly available CDC WONDER VAERS database) involving amenorrhea, POF or premature menopause, 88% of which have been associated with Gardasil®.5 The two-strain HPV2, CervarixTM, was licensed late in 2009 and accounts for 4.7 % of VAERS amenorrhea reports since 2006, and 8.5% of those reports from February 2010 through May 2015. This compares to the pre-HPV vaccine period from 1990 to 2006 during which no cases of POF or premature menopause and 32 cases of amenorrhea were reported to VAERS.

Many adolescent females are vaccinated with influenza, meningococcal, and tetanus vaccines without getting Gardasil®, and yet only 5.6% of reports related to ovarian dysfunction since 2006 are associated with such vaccines in the absence of simultaneous Gardasil® administration. The overwhelming majority (76%) of VAERS reports since 2006 with ovarian failure, premature menopause, and/or amenorrhea are associated solely with Gardasil®. When VAERS reports since 2006 are restricted to cases in which amenorrhea occurred for at least 4 months and is not associated with other known causes like polycystic ovary syndrome or pregnancy, 86/89 cases are associated with Gardasil®, 3/89 with CervarixTM, and 0/89 with other vaccines administered independently of an HPV vaccine.5 Using the same criteria, there are only 7 reports of amenorrhea from 1990 through 2005 and no more than 2 of those associated with any one vaccine type.

Few other vaccines besides Gardasil® that are administered in adolescence contain polysorbate 80.6 Pre-licensure safety trials for Gardasil® used placebo that contained polysorbate 80 as well as aluminum adjuvant.2,7 Therefore, if such ingredients could cause ovarian dysfunction, an increase in amenorrhea probably would not have been detected in the placebo controlled trials. Furthermore, a large number of girls in the original trials were taking hormonal contraceptives which can mask ovarian dysfunction including amenorrhea and ovarian failure.2 Thus a causal relationship between human papillomavirus vaccines (if not Gardasil® specifically) and ovarian dysfunction cannot be ruled out at this time.

Numerous Gardasil safety studies, including one released recently,8 have looked at demyelinating and autoimmune diseases and have not found any significant problems. Unfortunately, none of them except clinical safety pre-licensure studies totaling 11,778 vaccinees9 specifically addressed post-vaccination ovarian dysfunction. While data from those studies do not indicate an increased rate of amenorrhea after vaccination, the essential lack of saline placebos and the majority of participants taking hormonal contraceptives in those studies preclude meaningful data to rule out an effect on ovarian function.

A Vaccine Safety Datalink POF study is planned to address an association between these vaccines and POF, but it may be years before results will be determined. Plus, POF within a few years of vaccination could be the tip of the iceberg since ovarian dysfunction manifested by months of amenorrhea may later progress to POF. Meanwhile, the author of this statement has contacted the maker of Gardasil, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make known the above concerns and request that (1) more rat studies be done to look at long-term ovarian function after HPV4 injections, (2) the 89 VAERS reports identified with at least 4 months amenorrhea be reviewed by the CDC for further clarification since the publicly available WONDER VAERS database only contains initial reports, and (3) primary care providers be notified of a possible association between HPV and amenorrhea. A U.S. Government Representative responded that they “will continue to conduct studies and monitor the safety of HPV vaccines. Should the weight of the evidence from VAERS or VSD and other sources indicate a likely causal association between POF and HPV vaccines, appropriate action will be taken in terms of communication and public health response.”

The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

Primary author: Scott S. Field, MD

January 2016

The American College of Pediatricians is a national medical association of licensed physicians and healthcare professionals who specialize in the care of infants, children, and adolescents. The mission of the College is to enable all children to reach their optimal, physical and emotional health and well-being.

This handful of studies represents but the tip of the vaccine iceberg, but hopefully you get the idea, Patrick. You say that nothing has been published on the risks and ineffectiveness of vaccines. I say you are wrong and I’ve proved it. Will the fact that I’ve provided you with evidence to back up my claims make you look again at this issue? I doubt it. You are a true believer and your ‘religion’ leaves no room for questioning. You function on faith – not knowledge, evidence or information. I feel sorry for you, but those I feel the sorriest for are your students.

by Meryl Dorey

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

Meryl Dorey of nocompulsoryvaccination.com and the Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network, Inc. did 2 interviews on March 10th regarding the No Jab No Pay legislation. Below is the video from one of those. The other will be posted when it is live on the internet. Thank you so much to 108Morris108 for providing a venue to air these important issues. Please share this information widely.

Many of you know of children who were injured or killed by vaccines. I personally know the families of at least 10 children who died as a result of vaccination and dozens (this is within my family and my close friends) who are permanently injured.

Vaccine reactions are not rare – it is only rare that they are acknowledged.

Jill Hennessy is the Health Minister in Victoria. In my personal opinion, she is either completely ignorant of ANY scientific information about vaccination or is totally entrenched in an effort to cover up this information. Either way, a person in her position has no right at all to make statements like she did a couple of weeks ago – statements that were reported on nationally and which may lead to children being vaccine-injured because their parents believed what she said and did not take responsibility to research this issue as a result.

I’m going to go further and say that I believe she should be held personally and financially accountable for every single case of vaccine injury or death that occurs from the date of her statement going forward, unless and until she issues a full retraction and apology for her misstatement (I’m being kind here).

She was handing out negligent medical advice – stating that there are no risks to vaccination – when it is obvious, proved and not controversial at all in medical science – that these risks exist and are real. All one has to do is read the manufacturer’s package inserts for each vaccine to find a long list of potential reactions and contraindications (reasons why vaccines may not be appropriate for everyone).

This video tells the stories of several families who all believed the pronouncements of people like Minister Hennessy – that vaccines were safe for their children. Sadly, they found out otherwise. These are the families and children Minister Hennessy believes don’t exist. My family and our vaccine injury experience is also invisible to the Minister. A quick search of YouTube will find thousands and thousands more videos like this one.

It is time to show the Minister the error of her ways.

A good way to start would be to write to her at her Parliamentary email address – jill.hennessy@parliament.vic.gov.au. Send her your story or just tell her why you believe what she said is wrong and potentially dangerous.

If you feel so inclined, feel free to cc me on your emails or send me links to your posts at meryl@avn.org.auand feel free to use the hashtag – #VaccineRisksAreReal

by Meryl Dorey

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

I got an email from my old ‘friend’, Jane Hansen this morning and really, it’s been far too long since we two have communicated. You know how it is. Life gets busy, kids are growing, places to go, people to see…

But Jane took the time to drop me a quick line and for that, I’m very grateful

I had just sent a copy of Dr Brian Martin’s latest article, News with a negative frame: a vaccination case study, to some social networking pages I follow and the email lists I help maintain. And darned if I didn’t forget to include Jane on that email – so sorry! But all’s well because she got the email anyway.

For those who haven’t yet read this article, I highly recommend you do! It concerns negative and biased coverage regarding Dr Judy Wilyman’s PhD from the University of Wollongong by Kylar Loussikian of the Australian newspaper in particular, and the Australian media in general.

You see, there are some journalists out there who apparently believe that those who hold a contrary position on scientific issues (such as vaccination) should not be able to obtain a PhD – nor, it seems, should they be allowed a voice in the public debate. Hard to imagine, I know!

And Jane, bless her little heart, appears to be one of those journalists too. Jane, we really do have to talk…

In her usual spontaneous style, Jane’s email to me was direct and straight to the point:

You’re the queen of twisting truth Meryl

Gardasil is one of the most heavily studies vaccines around and one of the most effective. To ignore the vast body of science on this is pure ignorance.

Now Jane, I really am trying to work with you on this – really! But I have searched Dr Martin’s article for even one mention of Gardasil and it might surprise you (or not) to know that it is not mentioned even once. There is a short mention of HPV – the virus that Gardasil is meant to protect against – but that mention is made, not to discuss the science behind HPV vaccination, but simply to quote a paragraph from the Australian newspaper article in question.

So, trying to be helpful because after all, I really ‘get’ you, I offered the following response:

Did you actually read the article, Jane? If so, what is your objection to what Dr Martin has said? Where has he gone wrong? Please feel free to share your insight on this article with either myself or Dr Martin.

He was most particularly NOT not talking about the science behind vaccination which is what leads me to believe that you did not read the article you are replying to. Dr Martin was speaking about how the media uses language to frame an argument in such a way that the truth of matters is ignored and instead, a particular barrow is pushed based purely on what it is the media wishes to propound.

Please read Dr Martin’s article and if you have any criticisms, I am sure he would be most happy to hear them and to respond to you.

Meryl

PS – why are you bringing up Gardasil? What did that have to do with Dr Martin’s article or Dr Wilyman’s PhD from the UOW? You seem to have strayed very far from the point, Jane.

Instead of thanking me for so kindly and politely pointing out the errors of your way, Jane, you instead sent me the following email:

I don’t engage with cherry pickers. Goodbye

Well! May I remind you, Jane, that you were the one who contacted me! So any engagement was totally and absolutely down to you.

Is this any way to carry on a conversation? You start talking and when someone gives a reasoned and civil reply, you attack them and storm off in a virtual huff? That’s neither mature nor is it productive.

These are Australia’s children we are talking about here, Jane. Their health, wellbeing and their very lives. Don’t they deserve better than what you are giving them?

Oh, forgive me! How silly.

I seem to have forgotten that you work for Murdoch.

Forget I said anything.

by Meryl Dorey

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

Last week, one of the most gob-smackingly ignorant articles I’ve read to date on the issue of vaccination (and trust me, I’ve read plenty of ignorant articles on this subject – especially from the Murdoch rags) appeared in – of all papers – the Melbourne Age.

I say of all papers because the Age used to have a reputation for excellent reporting. I especially remember the series by Ryle and Hughes in the 1990s about the scandalous vaccine testing done on orphans by the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. These articles and more made people consider The Age to be one of the more authoritative, trustworthy and intellectual journals in Australia.

How the mighty have fallen!

The current article in question, entitled People who don’t vaccinate their kids are selfish, plumbs new depths never before charted. Lower even than those attained by Claire Harvey or Jane Hansen – and in my personal opinion, those depths were already pretty low!

This article discusses an ‘outbreak’ of measles in Brunswick, VIC. And by outbreak, they mean 10 cases – almost all in adults – not children. At no point are we told the vaccination status of those involved. For all we know, every single one of them was fully vaccinated against measles. Funny how newspapers almost never report the vaccination status of cases when trying to blame outbreaks on the unvaccinated. I guess the effect would be ruined if we were to find out that those being affected were all supposed to have been protected by vaccination.

Or, maybe not.

You see, Brunswick has a vaccination rate of 94% for one-year-olds. And the article actually implies it is that 1% difference between the mythical nirvana of ‘herd immunity’ – a 95% vaccination rate – and the reality of cases amongst adults, that makes all the difference.

At 95% vaccination compliance, measles couldn’t get a look in! The virus would be running up against an invisible wall with a big transparent KEEP OUTsign that only these tiny little buggers can see.

But at 94%, the gate is wide open and the MEASLES WELCOME, ENTER HEREsign is flashing its garish neon message that, again, only the virus can see.

Isn’t science grand?

But it gets better (and by better, I mean worse).

Because, believe it or not, this genius of a news hack (I won’t deign to call her a journalist. I don’t believe that moniker suits her at all) actually states that:

“The more unimmunised children there are in the room, the more likely the immunised children will be affected and catch the virus.”

Where do I begin?

Is this writer really claiming that the vaccine will only protect children up to and until the point where they are exposed to it and then, it doesn’t work? Well, though I personally believe that to be the case, I don’t use this evidence of vaccine ineffectiveness to try and force other people to be vaccinated to protect – well – the vaccinated!

In addition, what possible difference can it make whether there are 2 unvaccinated children in the room or 18? Do viruses get stronger in groups? Are they like bikie gangs – feeding on each other’s violent impulses in a tiny little example of mob rule? I can just picture them – pathogens in leather jackets with slogans emblazoned on the back – MEASLES GANG – VIC BRANCH.

Lastly, how can the vaccinated children who are so terrifyingly at risk of contracting the ‘deadly’ measles virus possibly be considered to be immunised when immunised means by definition – immune? Either you are immune and you don’t have to worry about catching an illness (eg if you have already had measles, you are immune for life – a benefit no vaccine can give you) or you are just vaccinated and still have to worry about getting the disease.

You can’t have it both ways. And trying to blame some mysterious unvaccinated child for an illness in the vaccinated is like a woman blaming her unwanted pregnancy on the fact that her neighbour stopped taking birth control pills a month earlier.

Melbourne Age – you should be thoroughly ashamed for actually paying someone to write this ridiculous claptrap. It’s time for your paper to start reporting the news with investigative reporters like Ryle and Hughes rather than regurgitating corporate sponsored lies .

by Meryl Dorey

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

The following post is reblogged with permission kind permission of a brand new blog –tyrannical timeswhich will definitely be a page to follow – make sure you subscribe! There are so many ways in which the Australia government, bless their little souls, have breached the constitution and federal legislation through recent No Jab No Pay legislation. This blog has raised just one more in a long line of issues – how can the government use information held by the ACIR for a purpose that was never intended and how that breaches our right to privacy. Were the drafters of this legislation really so arrogant they did not even consider this angle?

The question of the legality of the so-called No Jab No Pay law has never been far from my mind since the prospect of abolishing belief exemptions for childcare and family tax benefits first emerged in February last year, following the release of a Productivity Commission report containing such a recommendation.

However, notwithstanding the utter moral repugnancy of linking means-tested welfare payments to vaccination without provision for belief exemptions, it was always going to be a bridge-too-far to prevent this law from being passed using logical or moral reasoning, for reasons which I will not document here (readers familiar with the topic will already be aware of those reasons).

Consequently, the burden was always going to fall on pro-choice advocates to find a legal antidote to this poisonous, tyrannical law.

An obvious and critical aspect of the No Jab No Pay law is that it is dependent for its operation on the use of vaccination status data collected and held by the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register during the past 20 years.

I have always objected to the government collecting information about my children’s vaccination habits – or rather non-vaccination habits – however, like most, I was never inclined to investigate further the legality of it doing so, for the fact that belief exemptions have been permitted since a vaccination requirement was first used to regulate eligibility to child care payments. There was simply no need – at least that’s what I thought before last year. No Jab No Pay is a potent lesson in why we should only permit the government to collect information about us on a need-to-know basis, otherwise, some day, in some way, it will eventually be used against us, as is being done now.

Contrary to what nanny-state proponents would have us believe, information privacy is something everyone should be concerned about!

“If you’ve done nothing wrong then you shouldn’t care about what information the government is collecting about you” they proclaim.

Well, up until 31 December 2015, conscientious objectors to vaccination weren’t doing anything wrong, yet from January 01 2016 we are now being denied entitlement to child-care and family tax benefits.

The passage of No Jab No Pay necessitates a closer examination of the validity of the register itself, as well as the validity of the purposes for which the government is collecting and using information held by the register against a percentage of its citizens.

Just because the government has been collecting individual vaccination status information about our children for 20 years, doesn’t mean it has been doing so lawfully!

The register, the extent of personal information collected, and how information held by the register may be legally used should be a key focus for any lawyer charged with examining ways to restore our rights. The register law may present an easier avenue by which to achieve this end than the actual No Jab No Pay legislation itself.

History and use of the Register

The Australian Childhood Immunisation Register was constituted by regulation in 1995, and subsequently incorporated into legislation in 1996, by amendment to the Health Insurance Act 1973. The parliamentary digest for this amendment provides an overview of the proposed, narrow uses of information collected by the register. Importantly, from its inception up until commencement of the Child Care Payments Act 1997, vaccination status data collected by the register did not include non-vaccination, nor could it be used for the purpose of regulating eligibility to child care or family payments.

Secondly, between late 1997 and 2015 – whilst vaccination status data collected by the register was used to regulate eligibility to certain child care and family payments following enactment of the Child Care Payments Act, and subsequently A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act – the data was collected and used on the basis that belief exemptions were in force during this period. No Jab No Pay proposes to use vaccination status data collected for this earlier purpose (inclusive of the right to belief exemptions), for a broader purpose, namely, enforcement of a vaccination requirement without belief exemptions.

In other words, the government has been deceptively collecting vaccination status data about our children for the last 18 years on the basis that collection and use of that data for regulating eligibility to child care and family payments included an entitlement to register a belief exemption, but now intends to use the information collected to date for a broader purpose not inclusive of a right to register a belief exemption. A classic bait and switch.

The Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015 passed late last year, purports to provide authority for the government to continue to keep an immunisation register, and in fact extends the children’s register to include those “children” up to 20 years of age. Yes, adult “children”, and later in 2016, the register will become a whole-of-life immunisation register. Are you feeling the warmth of that nanny state blanket yet?

Section 13 of the new Immunisation Register Act provides a list of constitutional bases (as found in section 51) on which the immunisation register may be authorised and as much as I would like for the immunisation register to be dead and buried altogether, have little doubt that one or more of those bases would support the constitutional validity of the immunisation register itself. After all, a sufficient connection between the register law and one of those powers is all that’s required for the Commonwealth to have the necessary power to legislate in that area.

(a) the provision of pharmaceutical benefits; or

(b) the provision of medical services (without any form of civil conscription); or

(c) census or statistics; or

(d) external affairs, including:

(i) giving effect to an international agreement to which Australia is a party; or

(f) the implied power of the Parliament to make laws with respect to nationhood; or

(g) the executive power of the Commonwealth; or

(h) matters incidental to the execution of any of the legislative powers of the Parliament or the executive power of the Commonwealth.

However, it’s one thing for the Commonwealth to have the necessary legislative power to create and keep an immunisation register, but quite another to collect and use personal medical information for expedient purposes in excess of its authorised powers.

For example, under the census and statistics power, it would be entirely possible to argue that the collection and use of vaccination status data about individuals – identifiable by name, date of birth, address, and Medicare number – is well beyond the scope of that power.

It remains to be seen whether or not the Commonwealth has the necessary power to collect vaccination status data about individuals with a level of identifying information sufficient to regulate entitlement to means-tested welfare payments. If it doesn’t, then it will lose the only effective carrot it has ever had by which to lift immunisation rates, and it will only have itself to blame for enacting such a draconian law.

I really should have known. Tasha is the President of the Australian Vaccination Network and is a widow raising 8 children – 6 of whom has various levels of disability due to vaccine reactions. Only her youngest 2 – who are completely unvaccinated – are completely healthy.

Despite this and despite the fact that her doctor has attested to the fact that vaccines were the cause of her children’s problems, Tasha will lose out on tens of thousands of dollars under the current legislative changes under the immoral, illegal and discriminatory No Jab No Pay legislation.

To add insult to injury, because she lives in Victoria, she will also not be able to get childcare for her younger, unvaccinated children due to the Victorian government’s No Jab No Play legislation which bars healthy unvaccinated children from mixing with their fully-vaccinated compatriots. Find the logic there (hint from me: there isn’t any!)

Being the amazing activist that she is, Tasha has sought legal advice and the following documents were produced with the assistance of a solicitor with expertise in these issues. They should be used as is – without any changes – for the best possible effect.

I hope that all of you who are going to be affected will go to your doctors or the doctor at your local council clinic to get them to attest to the fact that they will not vaccinate your children against your wishes. If enough of us do this, the government will be backed into a corner – well and truly!

Below is the form which has been designed for this purpose for parents in this situation:

“ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF INVOLUNTARY CONSENT TO VACCINATION

I, …………………………………………….…..
name and title of Immunisation Provider

confirm that ……………………………..………
name of parent/s

has/have presented their child ..…………………..………………..………….…..
name of child

on this date………….… for the following vaccinations: ………..…. ……..……

I acknowledge that the consent provided by …… ……………………………….. name of parent/s is not voluntary consent.

Given the absence of voluntary consent, I am/am not willing to proceed with the vaccination of …………………………………………..
name of child

Signed by: …………………………………………………
name and title of provider

In the presence of : …………………………………………………
signature of witness

…………………………………………………
name of witness

Date: ………………………………………….

The Immunisation Provider (IP), upon being presented with the form, will either:

(1) complete the form in such a way as to indicate that the IP is not willing to proceed with the vaccination, and will then sign the form, or

(2) decline to sign the form, in which case the parent may sign a Statutory Declaration stating that the parent asked the IP to sign the form and the IP refused. This will have the same effect as (1).

The wording of the Statutory Declaration should be as follows:

“STATUTORY DECLARATION

I, ……………………………….. confirm that I has/have presented my child …..………………..
name of parent/s name of child

to ……………………………..…………………
name and title of Immunisation Provider

on this date………… for the following vaccinations: ……………….. ………………

I informed the Immunisation Provider that my consent is not voluntary consent.

I presented the attached form and requested the Immunisation Provider to complete and sign the form. The Immunisation Provider then refused to sign the form.

Signed by: …………………………………………………
name of parent/s

In the presence of : …………………………………………………
signature of witness

…………………………………………………
name of witness

………….…
date

The parent may then lodge a complaint through Centrelink on the grounds that they are being disadvantaged through no fault of their own.

If the government is going to tell us they will disadvantage us for making legal, informed health choices for our children, then they must be made to take responsibility for the outcomes of this coercion.

2.1.3 Valid consent
Valid consent can be defined as the voluntary agreement by an individual to a proposed procedure, given after sufficient, appropriate and reliable information about the procedure, including the potential risks and benefits, has been conveyed to that individual.2-6 As part of the consent procedure, persons to be vaccinated and/or their parents/carers should be given sufficient information (preferably written) on the risks and benefits of each vaccine, including what adverse events are possible, how common they are and what they should do about them7 (the table inside the front cover of this Handbook, Side effects following immunisation for vaccines used in the National Immunisation Program (NIP) schedule, can be used for this purpose).

For consent to be legally valid, the following elements must be present:6,8

It must be given by a person with legal capacity, and of sufficient intellectual capacity to understand the implications of being vaccinated.

It must be given voluntarily in the absence of undue pressure, coercion or manipulation. (emphasis added)

It must cover the specific procedure that is to be performed.
It can only be given after the potential risks and benefits of the relevant vaccine, risks of not having it and any alternative options have been explained to the individual.
The individual must have sufficient opportunity to seek further details or explanations about the vaccine(s) and/or its administration. The information must be provided in a language or by other means the individual can understand. Where appropriate, an interpreter and/or cultural support person should be involved.

Consent should be obtained before each vaccination, once it has been established that there are no medical condition(s) that contraindicate vaccination. Consent can be verbal or written. Immunisation providers should refer to their state or territory’s policies on obtaining written consent (refer to Appendix 1 Contact details for Australian, state and territory government health authorities and communicable disease control).

Consent on behalf of a child or adolescent
In general, a parent or legal guardian of a child has the authority to consent to vaccination of that child; however, it is important to check with your state or territory authority where any doubt exists.2,5 A child in this context is defined as being under the age of 18 years in Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia; under the age of 14 years in New South Wales; and under the age of 16 years in the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Queensland follows common law principles.

For certain procedures, including vaccination, persons younger than the ages defined above may have sufficient maturity to understand the proposed procedure and the risks and benefits associated with it, and thus may have the capacity to consent under certain circumstances. Refer to the relevant state or territory immunisation service provider guidelines for more information.

Should a child or adolescent refuse a vaccination for which a parent/guardian has given consent, the child/adolescent’s wishes should be respected and the parent/guardian informed. 2

The following information was posted to the Fans of the AVN Facebook Page and is reprinted here with the permission of the original author. I am also trying to obtain a copy of the Statutory Declaration this mother gave to the two doctors who refused to vaccinate her child and will post that here when/if I am able to get the text.
For those who oppose coercive vaccination policies and want to convince the government that their discriminatory legislation will backfire, this may just be a quick, inexpensive option.

If you do go ahead and do this, please let me know by sending an email to me here.

I have posted my letter today back to Centrelink I had an appointment with a lawyer about it last week… here it is if anyone wants to do the same….

I recently received a letter from Centrelink dated 2 December, 2015, informing me that in order to qualify for the continuation of the Family Tax benefit and childcare fee assistance, i need to ensure that my child is fully vaccinated. I am unable to complete the vaccination requirements for my child because I cannot find a doctor who will vaccinate my child, knowing that I am being financially coerced.

To do so would breach informed consent and leave them liable for medical trespass.

It must be given by a person with legal capacity, and of sufficient intellectual capacity to understand the implications of being vaccinated.

It must be given voluntarily in the absence of undue pressure, coercion or manipulation.

It must cover the specific procedure that is to be performed.

It can only be given after the potential risks and benefits of the relevant vaccine, risks of not having it and any alternative options have been explained to the individual

I am a conscientious objector to vaccination and so do not agree with my child being administered vaccines, due to much evidence regarding the toxicity of vaccines. Please watch and listen to this video if you can as there is much new evidence presented here by an immunologist who used to make vaccines.https://vimeo.com/146831570

Because of my precarious financial position as a single mother /teacher able to work only between school hours and/or the possibility of my child being disadvantaged by the denial of an early education, I am being put into the untenable and the coercive position of giving my child a medical intervention that I know is not in his best interests, against my will.

On Thursday, 17th December, 2015 my doctor refused to vaccinate my child against my will and has signed a statutory declaration acknowledging that my consent is not voluntary which I have attached. On Tuesday, the 22nd December, another Dr also refused to vaccinate my child against my will and Statuatory declaration is also included.

So I have fulfilled the vaccination requirements for my son to the best of my ability and it is from no fault of my own that the doctor refuses to vaccinate my child against my will.

If you cannot provide a doctor who is willing to sign a legal document stating that they are willing to administer vaccinations to my son without my consent by the 15th January 2016, then I will consider your contract as null and void and as such, the immunisation requirements for my son XXXXXX will be considered to be met.
Yours Sincerely…

As most would be aware, the Victorian Government introduced a Bill into that state’s Legislative Assembly back in September, the purpose of which is to prohibit the enrolment of most unvaccinated children in childcare services in Victoria. This Bill comes on the back of a similarly sinister one currently before the Queensland Parliament, and of course, the Commonwealth Bill, which is seeking to deny child care subsidies and Family Tax Benefit Part A supplement for conscientious objectors to vaccination, currently before the Commonwealth Parliament.

The Victorian Bill also represents a broken election promise. The ALP ran on a platform of supporting conscientious objector exemptions in child care laws. What a difference a few months makes.

https://www.viclabor.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Victorian-Labor-Platform-2014.pdf
The Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network, Inc. (AVN), along with 140 other people, consequently made a submission to the Victorian Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee, whose role it is to scrutinise all bills introduced to the Victorian Parliament for compliance with sound legislative practice, and in accordance with The Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (the charter). Under the charter, the Committee is required to determine whether a Bill introduced into Parliament is incompatible with human rights protected under that Act. This submission is available at the following link on the AVN’s website.

The AVN’s submission identified several human rights which are significantly limited by this Bill, and provided evidence to the committee that these limitations of human rights were not reasonably justified having regard to the Bill’s stated purpose of increasing vaccination rates in Victoria, and that there were less restrictive means by which the government may increase vaccination rates without infringing the human rights of conscientious objectors.

These arguments seem to have resonated with the committee, which reported its findings on the Bill last week, and which is available at the following link commencing on page 7 (Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (No Jab, No Play) Bill 2015).

1) The Bill’s immunisation requirement may constitute direct or indirect discrimination on the basis of imputation of possible future disease in contravention of the charter. However, the committee failed to note that the Bill may also conflict with the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act for similar reasons.

“The Committee will write to the Minister seeking further information as to whether or not new section 143B’s ban on the enrolment of most unvaccinated children in early childhood services is compatible with the Charter’s rights against direct or indirect discrimination on the basis of possible future disease.” (page 9)

2) The Bill’s provision for a temporary grace period of 16 weeks by which to comply with the immunisation requirement in relation to children of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent may constitute discrimination on the basis of race in contravention of the charter.

“The Committee will write to the Minister seeking further information as to whether or not new section 143C(1)(d)’s exemption of all Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders from this requirement is a measure taken for the purpose of assisting or advancing persons or groups disadvantaged by discrimination.” (page 9)

3) The Bill’s immunisation requirement without exemptions on grounds of conscientious objection constitutes an effective mandate for those Victorian parents reliant on child care services in contravention of the charter which protects the right to consent freely to medical treatment.

“However, the Committee notes that a parent who is unable to care for a child themselves (for example due to employment or other commitments) and cannot afford or otherwise obtain private care for their child (for example from a family member or a nanny) may have no choice other than to have his or her child vaccinated in order to enrol that child in an early childhood service.” (page 10)

The committee also noted that the Bill will have the effect of denying Commonwealth child care benefits which are currently available to defray the significant cost of child care services.

The Committee called on Parliament to consider whether there is a less restrictive alternative which is reasonably available to increase vaccination rates even though the AVN’s submission provided evidence about how vaccination rates could be increased without infringing the rights of conscientious objectors.

4) In relation to the AVN’s argument that the Bill limited the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief which is protected by the charter, the committee noted that an immunisation requirement to enrol children in childcare services in New South Wales provides for exemptions on such grounds, but made no recommendation to adopt such an exemption.

Notwithstanding, the committee’s damning findings about this draconian and totalitarian Bill, the Legislative Assembly proceeded to pass this Bill last Thursday following debate, and the word ‘debate’ has been used loosely. The only debate seemed to be around the Bill not being draconian enough because it provides for a temporary grace period for disadvantaged groups. For those wishing to read the various speeches by ALP, LNP and Greens members, the links to Hansard are provided below, but brace yourselves; it’s chock full of just about every pro-vaccine fallacy of which one could think. The table of contents makes it easy to find the relevant sections.

What this means is that the Bill is now before the upper house (Legislative Council) which resumes sitting next Tuesday 20 October 2015, so time is running out if we are to defeat this Bill. People in Victoria who wish to retain their freedom of choice need to stand up now, and should be contacting their state representatives to voice their objection to the Bill by highlighting to them the damning findings of the parliamentary committee: that the Bill is discriminatory; violates the right to consent freely to a medical procedure and; that there are less restrictive means by which the government may increase immunisation rates without discriminating against those opposed to vaccination.

The AVN has compiled some tips for those meeting with or writing to Victorian MPs. These can be found at the following link.

I just got off the phone with the Secretariat of the Senate Commitee that is considering submissions on the No Jab, No Pay legislation. For those who have not been aware of what is happening with this, you can click here and here to read more.

The Secretariat told me some very important information so whether you have already sent in your submission or you were planning on doing so today, you MUST read this first because today is the deadline for all submissions and your voice counts! Submissions have to be received by 5 PM AEST – there is a 1 hour grace period but no more.

1- If you have not included your contact details (Name, Address, Phone number), your submission will not be accepted. Please note – it has been brought to my attention that submissions made via the committee’s web form will always collect this information so only if you mailed, emailed or FAXed your forms will this be a concern.

2- If your submission does not touch on the Bill at all, your submission will be taken as correspondence and will not be counted. If you say somewhere either in the body of your submission or, should you be sending it as email, in the introduction, that this is your submission, then it will be considered as a submission. One wording that I’ve seen on several submissions is: Attached please find my submission to the Senate Enquiry on the abovementioned Amendment Bill.” This is good wording should you wish to ‘borrow’ it.

3 – I was told that there were so many submissions that it is possible they may not all be dealt with prior to the time that the Committee needs to report back to the Senate on the 9th of November. This is not acceptable! I just received information that over 1,000 submissions have been counted so far and it is expected that over 2,000 will have been received by the deadline this afternoon. I’m not sure if this is a record for any public inquiry by the Senate but it’s got to be close. It is so obvious that even Blind Freddy can see it, that this issue deserves time and serious consideration – not lip service and rushed decisions.

4- I was told that no promises will be made, but the Committee is considering holding a public hearing. We MUST put pressure on them to do this. We are voiceless without the opportunity to ask and answer questions in person as well as in writing.

Here is what I am asking everyone to do and it is vital that you do the first part today – the second can wait until next week if you’re pressed for time:

1- Check your submissions. If you feel that there is ANY chance that it will not be acceptable as a submission, edite it, add the wording about this being a submission, and resubmit it. Everyone one of us needs to be counted. Remember to do this before 6 PM this afternoon AEST.

2- Send an email to the Committee Secretariat demanding that they ask for an extension of time to properly consider the information they have received and also, that a public hearing be held to allow us to air our views before the senators. You can send this correspondence to the following email address – community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au.

Again, with ALL submissions and correspondence, include your full name, address and phone contact. You can certainly ask them to withhold this information when they publish your submission on the website and they will do so but they won’t accept submissions without these details.

One last thing, I have tried to send an acknowledgement to everyone who has forwarded their submissions to me but I have been sick over this last week and was unable to do so. Please take it as read that I LOVE what you are doing, appreciate each and every one of you and will try very hard to get back to you over the coming days. Keep copying me in on your submissions – I get a little thrill every time I read one 🙂

Since my last blog post about the letter-writing campaign, there have been some developments that need to be shared. These updates demonstrate very clearly that:

1-The States of Victoria and QLDplan on stopping children from attending childcare and pre-school no matter what proof has been provided to them that this is discriminatory; it won’tachieve the goal of increasing vaccination rates; it will hurt those who are least able to withstand this sort of financial burden;it will force women out of the workforce and onto the dole; it will not reduce the burden of disease or increase the mythical ‘herd immunity’.

The Victorian Committee is meeting on Monday, October 5th, to consider their legislation to block the admission of children to childcare and preschool. You can email your submissions to them this weekend (you do NOT need to live in Victoria to make a submission and your submission can be very short but it would be incredibly helpful to make one NOW) – the more submissions they receive, the better. Send your submissions to sarc@parliament.vic.gov.au

Here is the Victorian information, as provided by one of this blog’s intrepid readers:

2- The intent is to eventually restrict unvaccinated children from schoolaltogether and, with the introduction of the Adult Australian Immunisation [sic] Register, to eventually discriminate against everyone who chooses not to follow the full government vaccination schedule which could include literally hundreds of different vaccines. Education, jobs and other things that we currently consider our rights will be taken away from us if the government has its way and we allow it (driver’s licenses, public transport, the right to freely mix with others).

3- The Senate Inquiry is not planning on holding public hearingsat this point in time. This is a sure indication that they are simply paying lip service to our concerns. We must DEMAND the right to appear before them in public and both ask and answer questions before they sign our rights away.

4- Both Federal and State governments have been warned that these moves are unconstitutionaland breach the Discrimination Disability Act 1992. Despite this sure knowledge, they have decided to proceed with their illegal legislation. This is a waste of our tax dollars and they are only doing it because they feel safe in the knowledge that we will not take legal action against them. Foolish thought when we plan on doing just that should they proceed to enact these laws.

If you have not yet pledged to the AVN’s fund-raising appeal for legal action against the QLD, VIC and Federal Governments (remember, these pledges will only be called in should the organisation decide to proceed with legal action, and that will only happen if the government insist on discriminating against our families), NOW is the time to do so. There are nearly 20,000 people who will read this blog post. If every single one of you pledged only $5, there would be enough money to begin these actions. If you pledged more, there might not be a need for further fund-raising.

5- This came to light last night – too late to include in the talking points below – but it IS important and just another sign that the government and our legislators are ignoring the constitution and the law of the land:

The first National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education was signed by the Council of Australian Governments on 29 November 2008. Under this agreement, all governments committed to work together to ensure that all children have access to a quality early childhood education programme, delivered by a qualified early childhood teacher for 600 hours of preschool education in the year before they attend full-time school.”

“Under the National Partnership Agreement on Universal Access to Early Childhood Education – 2015 state and territory governments mustdevelop Implementation Plans that set out the strategies to provide universal access including participation by vulnerable and disadvantaged children, and indigenous children.”

Every family will lose a minimum of $14,000 per child if the Federal legislation proceeds. How much can you afford to pledge in order to protect those funds? How much are you prepared to pledge to protect your children’s and your own future? How much is it worth to you to be able to continue working without having to subject your body to dozens of mandatory vaccines and an invasive register that tracks you for the rest of your life?

Here is the page where you can make your pledge. Think carefully about how much you are willing to donate should the need arise and please share this with every friend, family member and associate who might be willing to help as well. If you are a health practitioner, forward this link to your clients. We MUST get the word out. We MUST be active and prepared to do what is needed to protect our rights. Revolutions have started for less. Let’s have a peaceful revolution against tyrannical government measures in the courts.

Below are ‘talking points’ that were compiled by Joe Guy for you t0 use in your letters to both Federal and State Parliaments. As you can see, this was an absolutely massive effort on Joe’s part and he did it over a matter of just a couple of days (and nights without sleep). I thank him from the bottom of my heart and know that you will find his information to be invaluable! You should all read it through if you can but if not, please skim and set it aside to read later because this is an education in why the government’s actions (both state and federal) are illegal.

There are many points in this document – just choose a few that you feel are important and be sure to include your own personal stories as well. Also DEMAND that the Senate Inquiry holds a public hearing to allow us to ask and answer questions about this legislation.

It is also vitally important to make an appointment to meet with your Federal and State Members (in QLD and VIC) to express your concerns about these proposed laws. Get friends together and go as a group for moral support if that would mean you are more likely to go. Go by yourself if you don’t need those friends. Do it this next week or the week after at the absolute latest.

If anyone in the Northern Rivers area of NSW would like to come with me to meet our Federal Member of Parliament, please email me to let me know. Give me your name and your contact number (s) – I will be back in touch. I would love your company.

Introduction

When the Australian Vaccination Network, as it was then called, turned its attention a few years ago to the apparent intent by Australian governments to introduce mandatory vaccination of children, its critics scoffed at the idea that any government would consider it.

Now that the unthinkable is before Federal Parliament and plans are well under way to make vaccination unavoidable and to extend such pressure to adolescents [G1,G2] and then to adults, these same critics, having subverted the AVN’s mission by framing the AVN for a wide range of unseemly and illegal behaviour, find themselves caught in a trap of their own devising.

Parents and others concerned to defend the freedom not to buy into vaccines are highly concerned at the spate of new state and federal legislation designed to coerce parents into having their healthy children vaccinated. The present attempt to legislate against such freedom federally is the Australian government’s Social Services Legislation Amendment (No Jab, No Pay) Bill 2015.

The committee MUCH prefers submissions using their online form by clicking this link. Next is emailing your submission to this link, and last and not preferred at all is hard copy to the following address:

Unlike the far broader “biosecurity” legislation that slipped through Federal Parliament in May and June, this bill is specifically designed to force parents to either suffer vaccination of their children or suffer financial penalties.

The present document musters arguments and resources to support the many basic human rights that vaccination coerced through economic pressure, social stigma, scientific and mass-media censorship, “biosecurity” requirements, or even the threat of imprisonment would violate.

The substance of the document takes the form of “talking points”, which fall under a number of broad topics relating to the wrongfulness of practically compelling the vaccination of infants. You can use it as a ready tool for letting the inquiry — and anybody else — know just what you think is wrong with the idea of forcing vaccination upon the unwilling. Many of these talking points will be useful also in fighting violation of the rights of adolescents and adults to refuse vaccination. Copy and paste, or paraphrase, individual talking points as you see fit, and use the very solid references that accompany them to show that your claims are well founded.

The document is a living document: it will grow, and evolve somewhat, as time goes by. It addresses one broad topic at a time. Beneath each topic are listed brief talking points. The talking points are then treated in greater detail, for those who like detail, and, in appropriate cases, are referenced. The references are credible enough to be beyond casual dismissal by anybody informed in the field.

The first two topics appear below. They are:

Topic (1): Vaccine-injured and other disabled children as easy targets

and

Topic (2): Human rights, medical ethics, and illegal discrimination.

At present, other topics planned for inclusion in the document are:

Topic (3): Dealing with the claim that the unvaccinated pose a threat

Topic (4): Arbitrariness of the vaccinations scheduled for childhood

Topic (5): Reasons to question assumptions of vaccine harmlessness

Topic (6): Loss of the benefits of exposure to the natural diseases

Topic (7): The evolutionary perspective

Topic (8): Irrelevance of the “childhood” vaccines to historical declines in virulence

Topic (9): Infant medication by coercion as a precedent for universal forcible medication

Topic (10): Irresponsibility of medical authorities’ acting (including transmitting hearsay) without due consideration of the state of published evidence

Topic (11): The duty of governments to take the protection and social nourishment of the unvaccinated and their families, and of the vaccine-damaged and their families, into especial account in formulating legislation, regulation, and policy

Topic (12): The impossibility of informed consent, due to systematic concealment of full, relevant, accurate information and obstruction of independent evaluation

Topic (13): The urgent need for recall rather than dumping of poorly researched medical products, including all currently recommended childhood vaccines

Topic (14): The urgent need for independent investigation of the commercial and political corruption and economic distortions directly attributable to the pharmaceutical industry’s anti-human-rights campaigns.

These topics, though already partly complete, are likely to change somewhat as the work progresses.

Please remember your power as your representatives’ constituents to change governments or take them to court for violating the Constitution and international law. The rights of parents and children are inalienable. Our rights are neither deserved nor undeserved, but inherent in our humanity, and lie beyond the legal capacity of any government, however well meaning, to annul without the consent of the governed.

In the words of Justice Kirby, “It is important to recognise that the fundamental human rights referred to in the instruments of international law preceded the inclusion of reference to them in such instruments. All that international law has done is to express the rights that inhere in human beings by virtue of their humanity” [G3].

“The Government intends to… expand the existing National Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Program Register (the HPV register) to include all adolescent vaccinations delivered in schools under the NIP.”

1A: The proposed legislation systematically targets children legally recognised as people with disabilities: the vaccine-injured, and the unvaccinated.

Talking point 1A: The proposed legislation systematically targets children legally recognised as people with disabilities: the vaccine-injured, and the unvaccinated.

The law recognises children with long-term injuries and children who are not vaccinated in full compliance with the vaccination schedule published in their state of residence as persons with disabilities [DC1].

Many of the children who have not received the full complement of vaccines that their state vaccination schedule suggests are victims of prior vaccinations and suffer long-term disabilities. Others are the siblings of such injured children. These and unvaccinated children, whom the law recognises as also having disability, along with their parents and representatives, are those whom this and other recent legislation systematically targets. (See related talking points under “Topic (2): Human rights, medical ethics, and illegal discrimination”.)

‘disability’, in relation to a person, means… (c) the presence in the body of organisms causing disease or illness; or (d) the presence in the body of organisms capable of causing disease or illness… and includes a disability that… (j) may exist in the future (including because of a genetic predisposition to that disability); or (k) is imputed to a person”.

========================================

Topic (2): Human rights, medical ethics, and illegal discrimination

The talking points

2A:The parents who refuse vaccination of their children are conscientious parents, and discriminating against them causes unnecessary stress on finances and health for no documented gain.

2B:This punitive measure creates expectations of individual sacrifices that are outrageously out of keeping with community norms.

2C:The proposed legislation violates several of the international human-rights instruments that the Human Rights Commission Act 1986 serves to protect.

2D:The proposed legislation seeks to subvert the genuine choices that lie at the heart of human rights.

2E:The requirement for informed consent is enshrined in medical ethics, in human-rights instruments to which Australia is signatory, and in international law.

2F:The Australian Government itself acknowledges, on the Health Department’s web site, that legally valid consent can occur only “in the absence of undue pressure, coercion or manipulation”.

2G:The Australian Constitution s.51(xxiiiA) forbids Commonwealth provision of medical and dental services to require anybody to accept those services.

2H:Imposing economic pressure to accept medical services through legislation is a form of practical compulsion that subverts legally valid consent.

2J:The proposed legislation and other recent legislation to penalize the unvaccinated systematically breach the right to privacy of medical information.

2K:The proposed legislation would breach the provisions by various human-rights instruments in force in Australia, as well as the Constitution itself, of inalienable freedom of informed choice to refuse medical products and procedures.

2L:The proposed legislation would breach the provisions by various human-rights instruments in force in Australia guaranteeing freedom from arbitrary interference, exploitation, and violence.

2M:The proposed legislation would breach the provisions by various human-rights instruments in force in Australia forbidding, in accordance with medical ethics, exploitation by forcible treatment of one person for the purported benefit of another.

2N:Discrimination against children disabled by prior vaccinations would breach international law, as would differential access to child care on the basis of this disability.

2P:Discrimination against children imputed to be carrying disease-causing microorganisms by virtue of their vaccination status (such an imputation being defined in law as a disability) would breach international law, as would differential access to child care on the basis of this disability.

2Q:Various human-rights instruments in force in Australia oblige the Government to create protections against exploitation of and discrimination against children and the disabled such as the proposed legislation embodies.

2R:The proposed legislation would violate inalienable human rights to refusal of medical goods and services, to freedom from arbitrary medical interference, to freedom from discrimination on a basis of differing beliefs, to freedom from discrimination against persons with disabilities, to freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, to freedom from discrimination against children, to freedom from discrimination against the disabled, to freedom from exploitation of children, and to requirements of bioethical transparency.

2S:The proposed legislation can meet its putative intent only by violating the most fundamental medical ethic, which forbids exploitation by imposition of the risk of a medical procedure on one person for the sake of another.

2T:The freedom to make voluntary decisions about what you are willing to risk your life or the life of your child for is a human and civil right.

2U:Nobody deserves to be written off by a drug company or government agency as an expendable casualty of public-health policy.

2V:According to Hippocratic tradition, the safety level of a preventive medicine must be very high, as it is aimed at protecting people against diseases that they may not contract.

2W:Compromising free informed consent by imposing any of the vaccines on Australia’s childhood vaccination schedules, all experimental, contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities.

Talking point 2A: The parents who refuse vaccination of their children are conscientious parents, and discriminating against them causes unnecessary stress on finances and health for no documented gain.

Conscientious objectors to childhood vaccinations are by and large well-educated [HR1], and their objections truly are conscientious, as they have taken the trouble to research the important questions that the vaccination regimen raises rather than make foolhardy decisions on a basis of authoritative hearsay. In many cases, they have sought the answers to difficult questions from their medical practitioners and health authorities and have been ignored, treated very badly, or told that the information requisite to a responsible decision to vaccinate simply does not exist. In flagrant disregard both of legal requirements and of parental pleas for trustworthy information, parents facing vaccine decisions most commonly are not shown even the package inserts that accompany the vaccines whose injection into their children they are expected to acquiesce.

Financially penalising parents who conscientiously decide against unknown risks for undocumented benefits, rather than those who make uninformed decisions to risk drugs with little to no assurance of safety and no proof of benefit, not only entrenches irresponsible parenting but also arbitrarily discriminates against responsible parents and deprives their children of the very income with which their parents feed, clothe, house, and educate them and thereby keep them physically and mentally healthy. The Government has made no attempt to justify violating the most fundamental medical ethics: the requirement of informed consent and the right not to bear medical risk, which is unavoidable [HR2] in vaccination, for the benefit of another.

Talking point 2B:This punitive measure creates expectations of individual sacrifices that are outrageously out of keeping with community norms.

The argument that an individual must suffer risks in order to protect others is one that, taken seriously, would have outrageous consequences. The proposal to take punitive measures to protect others from the decisions by the parents of healthy children to forgo inherently risky medical procedures makes no sense whatever if the Government does not equally penalise:

•parents who refuse to x-ray their foetuses;

•parents who allow their children to engage in physical-contact sports;

•alcoholics who may endanger others;

•farmers who refuse to “protect” their neighbours’ crops by spraying DDT on their own;

•all who frustrate counter-terrorism operations by putting curtains in their windows; and

•those who refuse to contribute to taxation by gambling and buying alcohol.

Talking point 2C: The proposed legislation violates several of the international human-rights instruments that the Human Rights Commission Act 1986 serves to protect.

The Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 offers protection from interference even by well-meaning governments with the rights and freedoms enshrined in the following international instruments:

Several of these instruments safeguard parents’ rights to noninterference in their right to make medical decisions on behalf of their children, including the right to refuse vaccinations. (The details of particular safeguards appear below.)

Talking point 2D: The proposed legislation seeks to subvert the genuine choices that lie at the heart of human rights.

The Australian Human Rights Commission states:

“Human rights… are based on principles of dignity, equality and mutual respect, which are shared across cultures, religions and philosophies. They are about being treated fairly, treating others fairly and having the ability to make genuine choices in our daily lives”. [HR3]

Talking point 2E: The requirement for informed consent is enshrined in medical ethics, in human-rights instruments to which Australia is signatory, and in international law.

Informed consent is the basis of medial ethics as it is of liberal democracy. An attack on informed consent is an attack on medical ethics, on fundamental liberties, and on human rights enshrined in international law. (See talking points 2G to 2R for specific references to the laws applicable.)

Talking point 2F: The Australian Government itself acknowledges, on the Health Department’s web site, that legally valid consent can occur only “in the absence of undue pressure, coercion or manipulation” [HR4].

Talking point 2G: The Australian Constitution s.51(xxiiiA) forbids Commonwealth provision of medical and dental services to require anybody to accept those services.

Justice Kirby declared that the Constitution (s.51[xxiiiA] HR6]) forbids the Australian Government from providing medical and dental services in such a way as to oblige parents to accept those services — an obligation that the Constitution and Kirby classify as “civil conscription” [HR6].

Talking point 2H: Imposing economic pressure to accept medical services through legislation is a form of practical compulsion that subverts legally valid consent.

Justice Aickin similarly declared, in relation to the Constitution’s proscription (at s.51[xxiiiA] [HR7]) upon providing medical services in such a way as to authorise civil conscription, that imposing economic pressure through legislation is a form of practical compulsion [HR8]. Such economic pressure, in penalising the option of non-consent, renders legally valid consent (see talking point 2F) impossible.

Talking point 2J: The proposed legislation and other recent legislation to penalize the unvaccinated systematically breach the right to privacy of medical information [HR5].

Talking point 2K: The proposed legislation would breach the provisions by various human-rights instruments in force in Australia [HR9], as well as section 51(xxiiiA) of the Constitution itself [HR7, HR6, HR8], of inalienable freedom of informed choice to refuse medical products and procedures.

Talking point 2L: The proposed legislation would breach the provisions by various human-rights instruments in force in Australia [HR10] guaranteeing freedom from arbitrary interference, exploitation, and violence.

Talking point 2M:The proposed legislation would breach the provisions by various human-rights instruments in force in Australia forbidding, in accordance with medical ethics, exploitation by forcible treatment of one person for the purported benefit of another.

Australian law acknowledges financial pressure to perform an act as a “practical compulsion” [HR8]. The proposed legislation, being specifically designed to apply such financial force to parents to vaccinate, therefore amounts to an attempt at forcible medical treatment for the benefit of others to the detriment of the treated, and violates various instruments [HR11] forbidding such exploitation.

Talking point 2N: Discrimination against children disabled by prior vaccinations would breach international law, as would differential access to child care on the basis of this disability.

Children injured by prior vaccinations commonly suffer long-term disabilities; discrimination against them on the basis of their parents’ or guardians’ recognition of their vulnerabilities therefore constitutes discrimination against the disabled. The proposed legislation would breach the provisions by various human-rights instruments in force in Australia [HR12] guaranteeing freedom from discrimination against children and against the disabled.

Specifically, differential access to child care on the basis of this disability contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [HR17] Article 19(1) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child [HR21] Articles 18, 23(1)&(4), 26, 27, and 31.

The Federal Government is, by virtue of international law [HR 13], obliged to take all necessary steps to prevent the discrimination that the proposed legislation would enshrine.

Talking point 2P: Discrimination against children imputed to be carrying disease-causing microorganisms by virtue of their vaccination status (such an imputation being defined in law as a disability) would breach international law, as would differential access to child care on the basis of this disability.

Children who carry microorganisms liable to cause diseaseare, by legal definition [DC1], disabled. Children imputed to be disabled are, by legal definition [DC1], disabled.

Therefore unvaccinated children imputed to be carrying disease-causing microorganisms by virtue of their vaccination status are, by legal definition, disabled children.

Discrimination against such children due to their parents’ or guardians’ practical recognition of their vulnerabilities therefore constitutes discrimination against the disabled, and contravenes various human-rights instruments in force in Australia [HR12] guaranteeing freedom from discrimination against children and discrimination against the disabled.

Specifically, differential access to child care on the basis of this disability contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [HR17] Article 19)1) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child [HR21] Articles 18, 23(1)&(4), 26, 27, and 31.

The Federal Government is, by virtue of international law [HR13], obliged to take all necessary steps to prevent the discrimination that the proposed legislation would enshrine.

Talking point 2Q: Various human-rights instruments in force in Australia oblige the Government to create protections against exploitation of and discrimination against children and the disabled such as the proposed legislation embodies [HR13].

Talking point 2R: The proposed legislation would violate inalienable human rights to refusal of medical goods and services, to freedom from arbitrary medical interference, to freedom from discrimination on a basis of differing beliefs, to freedom from discrimination against persons with disabilities, to freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, to freedom from discrimination against children, to freedom from discrimination against the disabled, to freedom from exploitation of children, and to requirements of bioethical transparency, as enshrined:

•in the Australian Constitution, section 51 (xxiiiA) [HR7];

•in the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief, Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5(1)&(3) [HR14];

As well, the legislation clearly meets the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO (IBC) tests for at least two unethical state actions: (a) III.3.1, “Disrespect for the patient’s will”; and (b) III.3.2, “Professional self-interest” [HR22].

Talking point 2S: The proposed legislation can meet its putative intent only by violating the most fundamental medical ethic, which forbids exploitation by imposition of the risk of a medical procedure on one person for the sake of another.

Talking point 2T: “The freedom to make voluntary decisions about what you are willing to risk your life or the life of your child for is a human and civil right.

“It is a human right to exercise voluntary, informed consent to medical risk taking, including taking risks with pharmaceutical products like vaccines.”

Talking point 2W: Compromising free informed consent by imposing any of the vaccines on Australia’s childhood vaccination schedules, all experimental, contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities.

Australian data on safety and effectiveness are created primarily through postmarket surveillance [HR24] (a primarily passive system relying upon physician reports and universally acknowledged to be 90% to 99% broken). Postmarket surveillance is necessary because the vaccines remain experimental (see Topic 5): unproven in protectiveness, unproven in safety, and almost uninvestigated in long-term health outcomes [HR23].

Imposition of these experiments without free informed consent contravenes Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [HR17] and Article 15(1) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities [HR19].

[HR2] The United States 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act acknowledges that vaccine injury or death may be “unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and accompanied by proper directions and warnings” [42 U.S.C. 300aa-22(b)(1)]. The “unavoidable” language in the Act is from the Restatement (Second) of Torts that applies to “products which, in the present state of human knowledge, are quite incapable of being made safe” [Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 402A, comment k (1965)].

“The purpose of incorporating a prohibition on ‘civil conscription’ in the provision of such services is thus to preserve such a contractual relationship between the provider and the patient, at least to the extent that each might wish their relationship to be governed by such a contract. In this sense, the prohibition is expressed for purposes of protection, including a protection extending to the patient. It is designed to ensure the continuance in Australia of the individual provision of such services, as against their provision, say, entirely by a government-employed (or government-controlled) healthcare profession.

“… [T]he prohibition on ‘any form of civil conscription’ is designed to protect patients from having the supply of ‘medical and dental services’, otherwise than by private contract, forced upon them without their consent.”

Section 51(xxiiiA) of the Constitution states: “The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to… The provision of maternity allowances, widows’ pensions, child endowment, unemployment, pharmaceutical, sickness and hospital benefits, medical and dental services (but not so as to authorise any form of civil conscription), benefits to students and family allowances” (emphasis added).

“Other forms of ‘practical compulsion’ are easy enough to imagine, particularly those which impose economic pressure such that it would be unreasonable to suppose that it could be resisted. The imposition of such pressure by legislation would be just as effective as legal compulsion, and would, like legal compulsion, be a form of civil conscription. To regard such practical compulsion as outside the restriction placed on this legislative power would be to turn what was obviously intended as a constitutional prohibition into an empty formula, a hollow mockery of its constitutional purpose.”

1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have a religion or whatever belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.

2. No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have a religion or belief of his choice.

3. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

Article 2

1. No one shall be subject to discrimination by any State, institution, group of persons, or person on the grounds of religion or belief.

2. For the purposes of the present Declaration, the expression “intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief” means any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on religion or belief and having as its purpose or as its effect nullification or impairment of the recognition, enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis.

Article 3

Discrimination between human beings on the grounds of religion or belief constitutes an affront to human dignity and a disavowal of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and shall be condemned as a violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enunciated in detail in the International Covenants on Human Rights, and as an obstacle to friendly and peaceful relations between nations.

Article 4

1. All States shall take effective measures to prevent and eliminate discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief in the recognition, exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms in all fields of civil, economic, political, social and cultural life.

2. All States shall make all efforts to enact or rescind legislation where necessary to prohibit any such discrimination, and to take all appropriate measures to combat intolerance on the grounds of religion or belief in this matter.

Article 5

1. The parents or, as the case may be, the legal guardians of the child have the right to organize the life within the family in accordance with their religion or belief and bearing in mind the moral education in which they believe the child should be brought up.

3. The child shall be protected from any form of discrimination on the ground of religion or belief. He shall be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace and universal brotherhood, respect for freedom of religion or belief of others, and in full consciousness that his energy and talents should be devoted to the service of his fellow men.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 7.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 18.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 20.

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 22.

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

Article 25.

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 27.

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

Article 30.

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

1. Human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms are to be fully respected.

2. The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society.

Article 4 — Benefit and harm

In applying and advancing scientific knowledge, medical practice and associated technologies, direct and indirect benefits to patients, research participants and other affected individuals should be maximized and any possible harm to such individuals should be minimized.

Article 5 — Autonomy and individual responsibility

The autonomy of persons to make decisions, while taking responsibility for those decisions and respecting the autonomy of others, is to be respected. For persons who are not capable of exercising autonomy, special measures are to be taken to protect their rights and interests.

Article 6 — Consent

1. Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.

2. Scientific research should only be carried out with the prior, free, express and informed consent of the person concerned. The information should be adequate, provided in a comprehensible form and should include modalities for withdrawal of consent. Consent may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without any disadvantage or prejudice. Exceptions to this principle should be made only in accordance with ethical and legal standards adopted by States, consistent with the principles and provisions set out in this Declaration, in particular in Article 27, and international human rights law.

3. In appropriate cases of research carried out on a group of persons or a community, additional agreement of the legal representatives of the group or community concerned may be sought. In no case should a collective community agreement or the consent of a community leader or other authority substitute for an individual’s informed consent.

Article 8 — Respect for human vulnerability and personal integrity

In applying and advancing scientific knowledge, medical practice and associated technologies, human vulnerability should be taken into account. Individuals and groups of special vulnerability should be protected and the personal integrity of such individuals respected.

Article 11 — Non-discrimination and non-stigmatization

No individual or group should be discriminated against or stigmatized on any grounds, in violation of human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Article 16 — Protecting future generations

The impact of life sciences on future generations, including on their genetic constitution, should be given due regard.

Article 18 — Decision-making and addressing bioethical issues

1. Professionalism, honesty, integrity and transparency in decision-making should be promoted, in particular declarations of all conflicts of interest and appropriate sharing of knowledge. Every endeavour should be made to use the best available scientific knowledge and methodology in addressing and periodically reviewing bioethical issues.

Article 27 — Limitations on the application of the principles

If the application of the principles of this Declaration is to be limited, it should be by law, including laws in the interests of public safety, for the investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences, for the protection of public health or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Any such law needs to be consistent with international human rights law.

3. The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

PART II

Article 2

1. Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

2. Where not already provided for by existing legislative or other measures, each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to take the necessary steps, in accordance with its constitutional processes and with the provisions of the present Covenant, to adopt such laws or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to the rights recognized in the present Covenant.

3. Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes:

(a) To ensure that any person whose rights or freedoms as herein recognized are violated shall have an effective remedy, notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity;

(b) To ensure that any person claiming such a remedy shall have his right thereto determined by competent judicial, administrative or legislative authorities, or by any other competent authority provided for by the legal system of the State, and to develop the possibilities of judicial remedy;

(c) To ensure that the competent authorities shall enforce such remedies when granted.

Article 5

1. Nothing in the present Covenant may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms recognized herein or at their limitation to a greater extent than is provided for in the present Covenant.

2. There shall be no restriction upon or derogation from any of the fundamental human rights recognized or existing in any State Party to the present Covenant pursuant to law, conventions, regulations or custom on the pretext that the present Covenant does not recognize such rights or that it recognizes them to a lesser extent.

PART III

Article 7

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.

Article 17

1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 18

1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.

2. No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.

3. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

4. The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.

Article 24

1. Every child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, national or social origin, property or birth, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State.

Article 26

All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Article 27

In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language.

1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

3. The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

PART II

Article 2

2. The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to guarantee that the rights enunciated in the present Covenant will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Article 4

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize that, in the enjoyment of those rights provided by the State in conformity with the present Covenant, the State may subject such rights only to such limitations as are determined by law only in so far as this may be compatible with the nature of these rights and solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society.

Article 5

1. Nothing in the present Covenant may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights or freedoms recognized herein, or at their limitation to a greater extent than is provided for in the present Covenant.

2. No restriction upon or derogation from any of the fundamental human rights recognized or existing in any country in virtue of law, conventions, regulations or custom shall be admitted on the pretext that the present Covenant does not recognize such rights or that it recognizes them to a lesser extent.

PART III

Article 10

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize that:

1. The widest possible protection and assistance should be accorded to the family, which is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, particularly for its establishment and while it is responsible for the care and education of dependent children. Marriage must be entered into with the free consent of the intending spouses.

3. Special measures of protection and assistance should be taken on behalf of all children and young persons without any discrimination for reasons of parentage or other conditions. Children and young persons should be protected from economic and social exploitation. Their employment in work harmful to their morals or health or dangerous to life or likely to hamper their normal development should be punishable by law. States should also set age limits below which the paid employment of child labour should be prohibited and punishable by law.

Article 12

1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

2. The steps to be taken by the States Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include those necessary for:

(a) The provision for the reduction of the stillbirth-rate and of infant mortality and for the healthy development of the child;

(c) The prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases.

a.Respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of persons;

b.Non-discrimination;

c.Full and effective participation and inclusion in society;

d.Respect for difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity;

f.Accessibility;

h.Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities.

Article 4 – General obligations

1. States Parties undertake to ensure and promote the full realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all persons with disabilities without discrimination of any kind on the basis of disability. To this end, States Parties undertake:

a.To adopt all appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the present Convention;

b.To take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to modify or abolish existing laws, regulations, customs and practices that constitute discrimination against persons with disabilities;

c.To take into account the protection and promotion of the human rights of persons with disabilities in all policies and programmes;

d.To refrain from engaging in any act or practice that is inconsistent with the present Convention and to ensure that public authorities and institutions act in conformity with the present Convention;
3. In the development and implementation of legislation and policies to implement the present Convention, and in other decision-making processes concerning issues relating to persons with disabilities, States Parties shall closely consult with and actively involve persons with disabilities, including children with disabilities, through their representative organizations.

4. Nothing in the present Convention shall affect any provisions which are more conducive to the realization of the rights of persons with disabilities and which may be contained in the law of a State Party or international law in force for that State. There shall be no restriction upon or derogation from any of the human rights and fundamental freedoms recognized or existing in any State Party to the present Convention pursuant to law, conventions, regulation or custom on the pretext that the present Convention does not recognize such rights or freedoms or that it recognizes them to a lesser extent.

5. The provisions of the present Convention shall extend to all parts of federal states without any limitations or exceptions.

Article 5 – Equality and non-discrimination

1. States Parties recognize that all persons are equal before and under the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law.

2. States Parties shall prohibit all discrimination on the basis of disability and guarantee to persons with disabilities equal and effective legal protection against discrimination on all grounds.

Article 7 – Children with disabilities

1. States Parties shall take all necessary measures to ensure the full enjoyment by children with disabilities of all human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis with other children.

2. In all actions concerning children with disabilities, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.

3. States Parties shall ensure that children with disabilities have the right to express their views freely on all matters affecting them, their views being given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity, on an equal basis with other children, and to be provided with disability and age-appropriate assistance to realize that right.

iii.To promote recognition of the skills, merits and abilities of persons with disabilities, and of their contributions to the workplace and the labour market;

b.Fostering at all levels of the education system, including in all children from an early age, an attitude of respect for the rights of persons with disabilities;

c.Encouraging all organs of the media to portray persons with disabilities in a manner consistent with the purpose of the present Convention;

d.Promoting awareness-training programmes regarding persons with disabilities and the rights of persons with disabilities.

Article 9 — Accessibility

1. To enable persons with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life, States Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure to persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, to transportation, to information and communications, including information and communications technologies and systems, and to other facilities and services open or provided to the public, both in urban and in rural areas. These measures, which shall include the identification and elimination of obstacles and barriers to accessibility, shall apply to, inter alia:

a.Buildings, roads, transportation and other indoor and outdoor facilities, including schools, housing, medical facilities and workplaces;

b.Information, communications and other services, including electronic services and emergency services.

2. States Parties shall also take appropriate measures to:

a.Develop, promulgate and monitor the implementation of minimum standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services open or provided to the public;

b.Ensure that private entities that offer facilities and services which are open or provided to the public take into account all aspects of accessibility for persons with disabilities;

d.Provide in buildings and other facilities open to the public signage in Braille and in easy to read and understand forms;

e.Provide forms of live assistance and intermediaries, including guides, readers and professional sign language interpreters, to facilitate accessibility to buildings and other facilities open to the public;

f.Promote other appropriate forms of assistance and support to persons with disabilities to ensure their access to information;

g.Promote access for persons with disabilities to new information and communications technologies and systems, including the Internet;

h.Promote the design, development, production and distribution of accessible information and communications technologies and systems at an early stage, so that these technologies and systems become accessible at minimum cost.

Article 11 — Situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies

States Parties shall take, in accordance with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law, all necessary measures to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including situations of armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies and the occurrence of natural disasters.

Article 12 — Equal recognition before the law

2. States Parties shall recognize that persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life

4. States Parties shall ensure that all measures that relate to the exercise of legal capacity provide for appropriate and effective safeguards to prevent abuse in accordance with international human rights law. Such safeguards shall ensure that measures relating to the exercise of legal capacity respect the rights, will and preferences of the person, are free of conflict of interest and undue influence, are proportional and tailored to the person’s circumstances, apply for the shortest time possible and are subject to regular review by a competent, independent and impartial authority or judicial body. The safeguards shall be proportional to the degree to which such measures affect the person’s rights and interests.

Article 13 — Access to justice

1. States Parties shall ensure effective access to justice for persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others, including through the provision of procedural and age-appropriate accommodations, in order to facilitate their effective role as direct and indirect participants, including as witnesses, in all legal proceedings, including at investigative and other preliminary stages.

2. In order to help to ensure effective access to justice for persons with disabilities, States Parties shall promote appropriate training for those working in the field of administration of justice, including police and prison staff.

1. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his or her free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.

2. States Parties shall take all effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others, from being subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 16 — Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse

1. States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social, educational and other measures to protect persons with disabilities, both within and outside the home, from all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse, including their gender-based aspects.

2. States Parties shall also take all appropriate measures to prevent all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse by ensuring, inter alia, appropriate forms of gender- and age-sensitive assistance and support for persons with disabilities and their families and caregivers, including through the provision of information and education on how to avoid, recognize and report instances of exploitation, violence and abuse. States Parties shall ensure that protection services are age-, gender- and disability-sensitive.

3. In order to prevent the occurrence of all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse, States Parties shall ensure that all facilities and programmes designed to serve persons with disabilities are effectively monitored by independent authorities.

4. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to promote the physical, cognitive and psychological recovery, rehabilitation and social reintegration of persons with disabilities who become victims of any form of exploitation, violence or abuse, including through the provision of protection services. Such recovery and reintegration shall take place in an environment that fosters the health, welfare, self-respect, dignity and autonomy of the person and takes into account gender- and age-specific needs.

5. States Parties shall put in place effective legislation and policies, including women- and child-focused legislation and policies, to ensure that instances of exploitation, violence and abuse against persons with disabilities are identified, investigated and, where appropriate, prosecuted.

Article 17 — Protecting the integrity of the person

Every person with disabilities has a right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity on an equal basis with others.

Article 19 — Living independently and being included in the community

States Parties to this Convention recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community, including by ensuring that:

a.Persons with disabilities have the opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live on an equal basis with others and are not obliged to live in a particular living arrangement;

b.Persons with disabilities have access to a range of in-home, residential and other community support services, including personal assistance necessary to support living and inclusion in the community, and to prevent isolation or segregation from the community;

c.Community services and facilities for the general population are available on an equal basis to persons with disabilities and are responsive to their needs.

Article 21 — Freedom of expression and opinion, and access to information

States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities can exercise the right to freedom of expression and opinion, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas on an equal basis with others and through all forms of communication of their choice, as defined in article 2 of the present Convention, including by:

c.Urging private entities that provide services to the general public, including through the Internet, to provide information and services in accessible and usable formats for persons with disabilities;

d.Encouraging the mass media, including providers of information through the Internet, to make their services accessible to persons with disabilities;

Article 22 — Respect for privacy

1. No person with disabilities, regardless of place of residence or living arrangements, shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence or other types of communication or to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation. Persons with disabilities have the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

2. States Parties shall protect the privacy of personal, health and rehabilitation information of persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others.

Article 26 — Habilitation and rehabilitation

1. States Parties shall take effective and appropriate measures, including through peer support, to enable persons with disabilities to attain and maintain maximum independence, full physical, mental, social and vocational ability, and full inclusion and participation in all aspects of life. To that end, States Parties shall organize, strengthen and extend comprehensive habilitation and rehabilitation services and programmes, particularly in the areas of health, employment, education and social services, in such a way that these services and programmes:

a.Begin at the earliest possible stage, and are based on the multidisciplinary assessment of individual needs and strengths;

b.Support participation and inclusion in the community and all aspects of society, are voluntary, and are available to persons with disabilities as close as possible to their own communities, including in rural areas.

Article 28 — Adequate standard of living and social protection

1. States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right without discrimination on the basis of disability.

2. States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to social protection and to the enjoyment of that right without discrimination on the basis of disability, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right, including measures:

c.To ensure access by persons with disabilities and their families living in situations of poverty to assistance from the State with disability-related expenses, including adequate training, counselling, financial assistance and respite care;

5. With a view to enabling persons with disabilities to participate on an equal basis with others in recreational, leisure and sporting activities, States Parties shall take appropriate measures:

d.To ensure that children with disabilities have equal access with other children to participation in play, recreation and leisure and sporting activities, including those activities in the school system.

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 4

1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.

2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.

Article 10

1. Each State Party shall ensure that education and information regarding the prohibition against torture are fully included in the training of law enforcement personnel, civil or military, medical personnel, public officials and other persons who may be involved in the custody, interrogation or treatment of any individual subjected to any form of arrest, detention or imprisonment.

2. Each State Party shall include this prohibition in the rules or instructions issued in regard to the duties and functions of any such person.

Article 11

Each State Party shall keep under systematic review interrogation rules, instructions, methods and practices as well as arrangements for the custody and treatment of persons subjected to any form of arrest, detention or imprisonment in any territory under its jurisdiction, with a view to preventing any cases of torture.

Article 12

Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.

Article 13

Each State Party shall ensure that any individual who alleges he has been subjected to torture in any territory under its jurisdiction has the right to complain to, and to have his case promptly and impartially examined by, its competent authorities. Steps shall be taken to ensure that the complainant and witnesses are protected against all ill-treatment or intimidation as a consequence of his complaint or any evidence given.

Article 16

1. Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. In particular, the obligations contained in articles 10, 11, 12 and 13 shall apply with the substitution for references to torture of references to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

1. States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.

2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child’s parents, legal guardians, or family members.

Article 3

1. In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.

2. States Parties undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being, taking into account the rights and duties of his or her parents, legal guardians, or other individuals legally responsible for him or her, and, to this end, shall take all appropriate legislative and administrative measures.

Article 5

States Parties shall respect the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents or, where applicable, the members of the extended family or community as provided for by local custom, legal guardians or other persons legally responsible for the child, to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child, appropriate direction and guidance in the exercise by the child of the rights recognized in the present Convention.

Article 14

1. States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

2. States Parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.

3. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

Article 15

1. States Parties recognize the rights of the child to freedom of association and to freedom of peaceful assembly.

2. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of these rights other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (ordre public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Article 18

1. States Parties shall use their best efforts to ensure recognition of the principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child. Parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians, have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child. The best interests of the child will be their basic concern.

2. For the purpose of guaranteeing and promoting the rights set forth in the present Convention, States Parties shall render appropriate assistance to parents and legal guardians in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities and shall ensure the development of institutions, facilities and services for the care of children.

3. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that children of working parents have the right to benefit from child-care services and facilities for which they are eligible.

Article 23

1. States Parties recognize that a mentally or physically disabled child should enjoy a full and decent life, in conditions which ensure dignity, promote self-reliance and facilitate the child’s active participation in the community.

2. States Parties recognize the right of the disabled child to special care and shall encourage and ensure the extension, subject to available resources, to the eligible child and those responsible for his or her care, of assistance for which application is made and which is appropriate to the child’s condition and to the circumstances of the parents or others caring for the child.

3. Recognizing the special needs of a disabled child, assistance extended in accordance with paragraph 2 of the present article shall be provided free of charge, whenever possible, taking into account the financial resources of the parents or others caring for the child, and shall be designed to ensure that the disabled child has effective access to and receives education, training, health care services, rehabilitation services, preparation for employment and recreation opportunities in a manner conducive to the child’s achieving the fullest possible social integration and individual development, including his or her cultural and spiritual development

4. States Parties shall promote, in the spirit of international cooperation, the exchange of appropriate information in the field of preventive health care and of medical, psychological and functional treatment of disabled children, including dissemination of and access to information concerning methods of rehabilitation, education and vocational services, with the aim of enabling States Parties to improve their capabilities and skills and to widen their experience in these areas. In this regard, particular account shall be taken of the needs of developing countries.

Article 24

2. States Parties shall pursue full implementation of this right and, in particular, shall take appropriate measures:…

(c) To combat disease and malnutrition, including within the framework of primary health care, through, inter alia, the application of readily available technology and through the provision of adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking-water, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution; …

(e) To ensure that all segments of society, in particular parents and children, are informed, have access to education and are supported in the use of basic knowledge of child health and nutrition, the advantages of breastfeeding, hygiene and environmental sanitation and the prevention of accidents; …

Article 26

1. States Parties shall recognize for every child the right to benefit from social security, including social insurance, and shall take the necessary measures to achieve the full realization of this right in accordance with their national law.

2. The benefits should, where appropriate, be granted, taking into account the resources and the circumstances of the child and persons having responsibility for the maintenance of the child, as well as any other consideration relevant to an application for benefits made by or on behalf of the child.

Article 27

1. States Parties recognize the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.

2. The parent(s) or others responsible for the child have the primary responsibility to secure, within their abilities and financial capacities, the conditions of living necessary for the child’s development.

3. States Parties, in accordance with national conditions and within their means, shall take appropriate measures to assist parents and others responsible for the child to implement this right and shall in case of need provide material assistance and support programmes, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing and housing.

Article 29

1. States Parties agree that the education of the child shall be directed to:…

(b) The development of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and for the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations;

(c) The development of respect for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own;

(d) The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin;

(e) The development of respect for the natural environment.

Article 31

1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

2. States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.

Article 32

1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.

2. States Parties shall take legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to ensure the implementation of the present article. To this end, and having regard to the relevant provisions of other international instruments, States Parties shall in particular:

(a) Provide for a minimum age or minimum ages for admission to employment;

(b) Provide for appropriate regulation of the hours and conditions of employment;

(c) Provide for appropriate penalties or other sanctions to ensure the effective enforcement of the present article.

Article 36

States Parties shall protect the child against all other forms of exploitation prejudicial to any aspects of the child’s welfare.

Article 37

States Parties shall ensure that:

(a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.

(a) III.3.1, Disrespect for the patient’s will (“The principle of informed consent is at risk whenever someone claims to know what is the right thing to do, and insists that his or her decision should prevail over the self-determination of the patient, whether that person is the physician or a family member”): that “Reinforcement of the need to protect an individual patient’s integrity, including specifically the importance of respecting the right to refuse treatment”.

(b) III.3.2, Professional self-interest: that “The creation and enforcement of safety controls for medicines and medical devices and insistence on independent ethical review of innovative treatments, including the use of medical devices”.

[HR23]

Universal acknowledgement of the dangers inherent in all vaccines, in combination with universal inability to predict and thus protect those individuals who will suffer the gravest injuries by their use, implies that the products are experimental.

Similarly, universal inability to predict and thus protect those individuals in whom the vaccine will fail to offer the protection that is its intended function; inability to predict the lifespan of any such protection in any individual; and total ignorance of the long-term health outcome of its use in any individual all imply that the product is experimental.

The Federal Government is planning to introduce an amendment to current legislation that will remove a parent’s right to register as a conscientious objector to vaccination. As a result, in order to receive approximately $14,000 per year per child in entitlements, children will have to receive the full regimen of vaccines and any new vaccines that are introduced to the schedule – a virtually unlimited number since there are over 270 new vaccines currently being ‘tested’.

Thanks to the hard work of the AVN – the same group that successfully lobbied for the introduction of a Conscientious Objector clause nearly 18 years ago – the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs has agreed to hold a public inquiry into the legality of passing this legislation.

This is an opportunity that can help convince our legislators not to discriminate against the unvaccinated – but the opportunity comes with a very tight deadline.

The Committee has required that all submissions be received no later than the 16th of October – just over 2 weeks from now!

I am asking – begging – each and every one of you to please send in a submission prior to the deadline.

You don’t need to write War and Peace. Your submissions need be no more than a couple of paragraphs (though if you are so moved, feel free to make it longer and to include supporting documents and references) but whatever you do, please do it in a timely manner and share this information with everyone you know who believes that parents must always be allowed to make health choices for their minor children without fear of coercion, financial penalties, bullying or discrimination.

On social media, I have seen several groups of people getting together to write group submissions. This is a great idea if you feel uncomfortable with the data or simply want to support and be supported by other like-minded people.

Whatever you do, once you have completed your submission, please follow the instructions below (provided by the AVN) to submit them. Do not share your submissions online, but if you would like to send me a copy by clicking this link, I would love to have that information to keep track of the reasons people are providing to the Committee for why this law should never be passed.

Tomorrow, I will be posting some more details that have been compiled by Joe Guy that will hopefully give you some great ideas for your submissions. In the meantime, please read the details below.

I contacted the Secretariat of the Committee for general information about your submissions. Please read below for further details:

Q – What are the terms of reference of this Inquiry?

A – Because this is an inquiry about a Bill, anything contained within the Bill will be in the terms of reference so submissions should be focusing on what is in the Bill itself. You can download a copy of the Bill by clicking this link.

Q – Can people publish their submissions in advance of the hearing?

A- They can, but they will no longer be covered by Parliamentary Privilege. Once the committee publishes them, we are free to do whatever we want, but until then – your submissions should not be shared publicly.

Q- what about templates for people to sign or use as their own letter?

A- Templates are like petitions – the committee will not take them seriously and in fact, they may choose one representative template letter to publish and just publish the names of the other people who sent in the same or similar templates. Instead, people should read through the information provided below and choose from a list of topics to cover – in their own words.

Q- If you want to keep your submission – or a section of your submission private – how do you go about that?

A- You must inform the committee at the time of sending in your submission of your wishes in that regard. They will do their best to abide by your wishes.

Q- What is the best way to send your submission?

A- The committee MUCH prefers submissions using their online form by clicking this link. Next is emailing your submission to this link, and last and not preferred at all is hard copy to the following address:

I asked about large submissions and was told that it would probably be best for me – or anyone – not to put too much information in my submission. I was told that the Senators are often on several different committees and their time to read is very limited. The Secretariat will read every word and summarise the submissions for the Senators, but if we want the Senators themselves to read these submissions, we need to keep them short. If we do make them longer (and mine will be a bit on the long side – I can’t help it!) including our own summaries will probably be best.

Remember that submissions must be received no later than October 16th so if you are mailing your submission, send it at least 2 or 3 days earlier. Emailed submissions can be sent by the close of business on the 16th.

The AVN makes the following suggestions:

Everyone is invited to make a submission to this Inquiry.The more submissions the Inquiry receives, the greater impact it will have.

To make a submission, all you need to do is write a letter listing the reasons why the Bill should not be passed. Your letter will be more powerful if you base this on your own personal experiences and circumstances, or those of people you know.

You may find that using headings is a useful way to structure and organise your thoughts and reasons/arguments.

Your submission may be as short or as long as you like. It may contain facts, opinions, arguments or recommendations.

Supporting documents may be attached.

The most important thing is to present your reasons in a consistent and clear way that can be easily understood. You don’t need to make legal arguments.

Of most relevance is the Explanatory Memorandum because it purports to present why the Bill is justified. In particular, the Statement of Compatibility at the end of the Explanatory memorandum aims to account for why human rights breaches are justified.

Yesterday was the long-awaited second rally against the proposed no jab, no pay legislation. Held in nearly every capital city in Australia, these rallies presented a chance for parents to express their concern and anger about government discrimination, network together to share ideas about how to fight against these draconian laws (on both the state and federal level) and just meet like-minded people for friendship and support.

The organisers of these events did an amazing job – especially considering the fact that the media (for the most part) neither attended or promoted the fact that these events were taking place. The only way to get the word out was via social media and, though this is an effective way to inform others, it is not yet as widespread as mainstream media.

I, along with hundreds of others, attended the Brisbane rally and heard some great talks by a homeopath, Greg Beattie (former President of the AVN) and a very passionate presentation by a Brisbane mum who gave a very articulate explanation for why parents must always have the final word on medical treatments for their children.

I was asked to present a talk due to the unexpected illness of one of the speakers. Below is my presentation – a bit of modern history of the movement started in Australia by the AVN to protect parental choice.

Hello everyone. Firstly, I’d like to say thank you to the organisers of today’s rally for doing such an excellent job of publicising this event without any assistance from the corporate media. In addition, thank you to everyone here who is standing strong to support their convictions that freedom to choose what goes into our bodies and the bodies of our children must never be taken away by any government or medical community. No Jab, No Pay? No way!

My name is Meryl Dorey and I am the founder and past President of the Australian Vaccination Network.

There is an old saying that goes something like – those who forget the lessons of history are destined to repeat them.

Well, we haven’t forgotten our lessons, but the government has.

About 18 years ago, when the AVN was much younger and so was I, we found out on a Friday that the Federal Parliament was trying to sneak through an amendment to the Childcare Payments Act by attaching it to Veterans Affairs legislation. The intent was to remove childcare payments from any parent who chose not to vaccinate their children.

Immediately, we at the AVN swung into action. Groups of women with their children in tow came from the Gold Coast and Brisbane to the AVN office that was in my home. We spent the entire weekend photocopying packages of information for every single senator and MP. We sent hundreds of copies of our book, Vaccination Roulette, down to Canberra to be distributed to all elected representatives. We called our members asking for donations to cover the airfare and costs for our 2 representatives to get us down to Canberra and back – $1,200. We found an AVN member in the ACT who would put us up in their home while we lobbied for amendments to allow unvaccinated parents to access all government entitlements their vaccinated peers received.

Lynne Grimsey and I spent nearly 2 weeks in Canberra. We saw dozens of Senators and MPs and found support amongst the Greens, the Democrats and many members of the Labor Party.

Two women who knew nothing about the legislative process had a crash-course in politics and by some miracle, 3 of our amendments were proposed by Bob Brown, leader of the Greens, and 2 were passed. Those amendments enabled an entire generation of children to be registered as conscientious objectors to vaccination and still attend preschool and childcare. They prevented a generation of families from being financially penalised because of their legal decision not to vaccinate their children.

Yet here we are today, fighting that same battle again. And just as we did more than 18 years ago, we will win this battle and the government and corporate interests will lose. Because when you have right on your side, you will always be the victor.

Vaccination is a medical procedure that carries with it real risk of harm. The AVN has collected thousands of reports of serious adverse reactions and deaths following vaccination and those reports are just the tip of the iceberg.

How many of you here either have someone in your family who was vaccine injured or know of someone who has suffered or died because of vaccines? How many of you have a child with autism or know a child with autism?

No government can require me to give my children vaccines which I do not feel are in their best interests. No government can require me to place my own life and health on the line in order to keep or access work.

My body is my own – my children are mine to care for. The government is my servant – there to represent me, even if I myself represent a minority viewpoint.

We are often told by anti-choice zealots that “the science is in” when it comes to vaccination. Well, they are right – the science IS in. Vaccines do not protect as we have been told. They are not safe and do cause tens of thousands of permanent injuries and deaths every year worldwide. These are inconvenient facts – but facts all the same.

In the US, more than $3 billion has been paid out for injuries and deaths following vaccination – at least 83 of those payments were for vaccine-associated autism. This is a huge amount of money but it would have been much more if the government hadn’t set the bar so high and constantly moved the goalposts as parents got closer to winning compensation.

More and more cases of pharmaceutical fraud are emerging. More and more evidence of collusion between government regulators and vested interests in the drug companies.

Dr William Thompson, a top government vaccine researcher who has published many studies via his job at the Centers for Disease Control in the US has now been dubbed “The CDC Whistleblower”. At the request of his superiors at this corrupt organisation, he and his associates shredded all of the evidence from studies proving that the risk of autism was far higher in those who were vaccinated – especially when it came to black boys. Unbeknownst to those same supervisors, Dr Thompson kept the originals of those shredded pages and has given them to Congressman Bill Posey who is now calling for a Congressional Inquiry into how and why the autism-vaccination connection was covered up for over 10 years.

Two vaccine scientists who work for Merck – maker of many of our Australian vaccines including the MMR shot, have recently been granted whistleblower protection for their claims that the mumps portion of the vaccine is not as effective as Merck has claimed and that studies – conducted by the manufacturer and never checked by any independent authority – were fraudulent. If this case is won by the government, it has the power to close this drug giant down and I personally hope that it does.

Studies are being published nearly every day by top researchers worldwide, indicating that vaccine ingredients are toxic, have never been properly tested and are simply not preventing disease. In other words, we have scientifically valid reasons to question vaccination and the government, rather than trying to squash us should be thanking us for bringing this vital data to their attention, saving them money and potentially saving our children from dangerous, ineffective vaccinations.

And please keep in mind the fact that there are more than 271 new vaccines in the pipeline. Should this legislation pass unopposed, the number of vaccines we and our children will be forced to say yes to will be nearly unlimited.

Since 2002, the AVN has been asking the Health Department to use the data already contained within the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register to compare the overall health status of the fully vaccinated with the fully unvaccinated. This simple, inexpensive test could be done at the touch of a button and has the potential of setting parent’s minds at rest regarding the safety of vaccination. But the government has consistently refused to do this. Why do you think that is? Do you think they know that this data – data we have paid for through our taxes – would show definitively that the unvaccinated are far healthier than their vaccinated peers and that would then leave the government liable to pay for vaccine injuries?

Ashley Jade Epapara, the 2 year old toddler who died following an untested flu vaccine and Saba Button, the gorgeous little 1 year old who has global brain damage from the same flu shot would still be anonymous and happy if it were not for vaccinations. And if this legislation is allowed to be enacted, their stories will become much more common as parents are forced to choose between putting food on the table and keeping their children healthy; giving their children an education or keeping them alive.

Freedom of health choice isn’t free. It is something that we must cherish and defend by our words, by our deeds and by our actions. If you haven’t yet signed the My Will letters that are available here, please make sure you do so. If you haven’t made an appointment to see your members of parliament and senators – both state and Federal – to register your opposition to this legislation, call tomorrow and bring friends or family with you for moral support if possible. Write a submission to the Senate Inquiry and submit it before the 16th of October. If you need help, talking points or information, check out the details that will be up on my blog – nocompulsoryvaccination.com by tonight.

The only people threatened by healthy, unvaccinated children are those within the pharmaceutical and medical industry who are terrified that more of us will realise how healthy the unvaccinated really are. No vaccine can convey immunity. No vaccine can prevent a fully-vaccinated person from either contracting or transmitting infection to others.

I will never set my child on fire to keep your child warm nor should any moral government ever ask me to do so.

No Jab, No Pay will fail just as previous attempts to abridge our freedom to choose have failed – because when it comes to the crunch, we are a force to be reckoned with – a force whose momentum, energy and commitment will always ensure our victory over vested interests within government, medical ignorance and drug companies using tobacco science to justify compulsion.

One thing that emerged loud and clear at the end of the day yesterday, is the necessity to band together for political power, information and support. The only reason we achieved our first goal of a Senate inquiry into the No Jab, No Pay legislation was because the AVN and a small team of dedicated individuals took the time and had the funds to fly to Canberra three times to lobby the Senators. It didn’t happen by magic. It happened through hard work. And that hard work cost a lot of money.

If you are not yet a member of the AVN, please join today. I am not on the committee nor am I anything other than a member of that organisation. But I know that our best chance of defeating this legislation is through having a strong, well-funded centralised opposition.

Membership costs $25 a year and can be purchased by clicking here. Donations can be anything you can afford and you can donate here. Please don’t put it off. Your financial support – combined with the support of others – will guarantee victory in this battle for our freedom. How much is your freedom worth to you?

If we do nothing, this bill will pass. If we wait for someone else to take the actions needed, this bill will pass. If we think that once this Bill passes we can somehow get it rescinded, we are living in a fool’s paradise.

We need to act – and we need to act NOW!

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Thanks to the excellent work of a delegation of individuals that included representatives from the AVN. The Senate will be convening an inquiry looking into No Jab No Pay. I have no terms of reference for this inquiry as of yet but will find this information shortly. In addition to sending the letters to your State and Federal representatives, everyone needs to put together a short submission, explaining why you are opposed to this legislation and it needs to be received by the committee no later than October 16th so time is very short! I will be putting some talking points and details up about this over the weekend but be prepared to do some writing in the very near future. We need hundreds of submissions in order to show the Senators that there is a real grass-roots interest in health freedom. Be ready!

Here are 5 things you can do today to help ensure that this bill will never be enacted:

1- Send out the My Will letter to your local MP and State Senators should you have them.

2- Do the same for your federal pollies.

3- Write to Malcolm Turnbull and tell him why you oppose No Jab No Pay. Use the info from the My Will letter or use your own words. If you have a vaccine injured child – send him a picture. Make sure you use the words – “it is my will” in there somewhere so a reply will be required.

4- Join the AVN. Honestly, this is a no-brainer. For $25 a year, you will be supporting an organisation that is supporting you. Now that I am no longer President or on the Committee, I can say this – if you are not a member of the AVN, you are really not looking to the future. If you really can’t afford the $25, I believe there is a way to get a sponsored membership (but only do this if there is a real need). Contact the AVN and ask them about it. Whatever you do, join the AVN today!

5- Share this information with everyone you know – your children’s and grandchildren’s future may very well depend on what you do today. So be strong – be forthright – and be vocal. 271 new vaccines are in the pipeline. You and your family are the targets. So step forward and own your decisions. You are not alone. You are loved, supported and part of a growing community of freedom-loving men and women – speak your truth.

That’s it – a handful of steps you can take to help your family and your country. Will you please do this today?

I remember when it all started. 1978 – two years after High School. While I was riding the subway to college or to work, I would see the billboards and signs –

No Shots, No School!

I remember asking myself – why would anyone not want to vaccinate their children? How many crazy people are there in this world? And I was totally disgusted with the fact that such irresponsible, selfish and most likely stupid people existed.

Fast forward ten years to the vaccine injuries of my first child and, not right away, but after years of research, investigation and exhaustive reading, I answered the questions about why anyone would not want to vaccinate their children. And those reasons were scientifically valid and morally responsible.

I answered that question in the firm knowledge that my decision would have no effect on anyone else. Except for the fact that I believe my unvaccinated children are far healthier than their fully-vaccinated peers and therefore, we cost the country a fraction of what other families do in healthcare.

But I digress…

Today, I was interviewed by Radio 4ZZZ in Brisbane about therallies occurring across Australiathis coming weekend to protest against the No Jab, No Pay legislation supposedly being enacted in January 2016.. The interview will be uploaded to the website within the next few days and when it does, you can find it by clicking this link.

In that conversation, we spent a lot of time discussing the fact that the government and the medical community are using herd immunity as the reason for insisting that the vaccinated be protected from the unvaccinated.

Herd immunity is a myth. It does not exist. And in fact, the origin of the term had nothing to do with vaccines, disease eradication or even protecting people from infectious diseases.

In the 1930s, herd immunity was used to explain why epidemics were cyclical in nature so they could be predicted. The pivotal researcher into this issue described how when a certain percentage of children had contracted and recovered from measles (approximately 66%), there would be a period of 3-4 years before another outbreak occurred. And this was because measles infection gave you something no vaccine ever can – lifelong immunity.

How can you possibly have herd immunity from vaccines when vaccines don’t convey immunity? It makes no sense!

But the government today is saying that our unvaccinated children are somehow maintaining these diseases in the community – diseases that would have been wiped out if it weren’t for us refusing to ‘do the right thing’ and vaccinate. That we are preventing Australia from reaching levels of herd immunity that would see these diseases wiped out – That level being 95%

Where did that 95% figure come from?

When my son was little, the herd immunity figure that we were aiming for was 80%. But we reached 80% pretty quickly and outbreaks were still occurring. Obviously 80% must not have been enough (very scientific, don’t you see?) so, hey-presto, it went to 90%. A few years ago, we exceeded 90% but those pesky outbreaks were even worse (especially if we are talking about pertussis – whooping cough). Once again, the level needed to reach herd immunity was increased. Now, we needed to reach 95% before the protection would kick in.

The first year we reached that Nirvana level of 95% for whooping cough vaccination was in 2008 – the same year that our current whooping cough epidemic started – an epidemic which is still ongoing and is affecting any country that uses the whooping cough vaccine routinely.

There is talk now about herd immunity not being effective until the vaccination rate is 100%. Does the phrase ‘moving the goal posts’ mean anything to you?

So the pollies and health officials who have been out there, pointing the bone at unvaccinated children and telling everyone that ‘vaccines only work if everyone does them’ are really just trying to cover up the fact that their multi-billion dollar vaccination programs are failing.

And whilst many in the community have become sheep-like in regards to this issue, bleating about how our unvaccinated children gave their fully vaccinated little darling the measles, informed parents on both sides of the vaccination divide are refusing to accept such unscientific, illogical nonsense.

Herd immunity does not exist. It is not a ‘thing’. It is a lie.

On the radio program, I said that I would post some articles that demonstrate the myth of herd immunity (and coincidentally, a doctor from NSW just posted a comment on this blog the other day trying to convince me that vaccines induce natural immunity!) as well as the fact that those who are vaccinated against pertussis may be more susceptible to pertussis infection than their unvaccinated peers.

So here goes. And remember – for those who are reading this and have chosen to vaccinate your children, I support your choice 150%! Just as I expect you to support my right not to vaccinate by the same amount. Freedom only works if everyone gets to use it.

The concept that a highly immune group of prepubertal children will prevent the spread of rubella in the rest of the community was shown by this epidemic not always to be valid.

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Duration of effectiveness of pertussis vaccine: evidence from a 10 year community study- Br Med J (Clin Res Ed) 1988;296:612

Thus the pertussis vaccine or its schedule of use does not seem to provide sufficient herd immunity to prevent outbreaks of whooping cough. Matters might be improved if vaccination against pertussis were included in the preschool immunisation programme. (ed note: the medical community’s answer to vaccine failure always seems to be – add more vaccines to the schedule. When the preschool booster was added and the rate of pertussis only increased, the only other place to go was to blame the unvaccinated.)

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Herd Immunity and Measles – Clin Infect Dis. (1983) 5 (3): 463-466

The basic concept of herd immunity is directly applicable only under very special conditions. The agents of disease must be restricted to a single host species within which transmission occurs by relatively direct contact, and infection induces solid immunity. Also outbreaks must occur only in randomly mixing populations. In free-living populations, susceptibles are not distributed homogeneously but tend to cluster in subgroups defined by age and by such factors as ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The requisite for occurrence of epidemics, namely a large enough number of susceptibles in frequent contact with each other, exists in virtually all large populations, regardless of the total proportion of the population that is immune. Experience with measles illustrates these conditions. Total prevalence of immunity of ⩾90% in developing countries does not prevent annual epidemics among the susceptibles, most of whom are children younger than three years of age.

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The following is quoted verbatim from Dr Tetyana Obukhanych’s open letter to American Lawmakers on herd immunity which you can find linked at the bottom of this post.

The table below from the Cuban IPV study documents that 91% of children receiving no IPV (control group B) were colonized with live attenuated poliovirus upon deliberate experimental inoculation. Children who were vaccinated with IPV (groups A and C) were similarly colonized at the rate of 94-97%. High counts of live virus were recovered from the stool of children in all groups. These results make it clear that IPV cannot be relied upon for the control of polioviruses.

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And some information on why those who are vaccinated against pertussis can be more likely to spread and contract the illness than their vaccinated peers:

“Findings indicated that 85% of the isolates [from six Enhanced Pertussis Surveillance Sites and from epidemics in Washington and Vermont in 2012] were PRN-deficient and vaccinated patients had significantly higher odds than unvaccinated patients of being infected with PRN-deficient strains. Moreover, when patients with up-to-date DTaP vaccinations were compared to unvaccinated patients, the odds of being infected with PRN-deficient strains increased, suggesting that PRN-bacteria may have a selective advantage in infecting DTaP-vaccinated persons.”

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And why natural infection is far superior to vaccination in terms of protection and duration of resistance to future infection.

“Baboons vaccinated with aP were protected from severe pertussis-associated symptoms but not from colonization, did not clear the infection faster than naïve [unvaccinated] animals, and readily transmitted B. pertussis to unvaccinated contacts. By comparison, previously infected [naturally-immune] animals were not colonized upon secondary infection.”

And lastly, just for fun, are a few mainstream articles – written by doctors and parents – about the myth of herd immunity.

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

Dr Richard Kidd, Council and Board Member of the Australian Medical Association, QLD

On Thursday, September 10th, I attended an inquiry that was held in the QLD Parliament regarding the possibility of excluding unvaccinated children from childcare. I was there as an observer and to support the AVN contingent who, I must say, did a masterful job under very difficult conditions. You can read more about that byclicking here.

I am starting this blog series with the speaker who I felt should have been the best-informed of the lot, but who unfortunately showed himself to be terribly ignorant of some basic vaccination facts.

If he were a neurosurgeon or a kidney specialist for example, one might almost understand his errors. But Dr Richard Kidd is a Council and Board Member of the Australian Medical Association, QLD and he is also a general practitioner – the sort of person who both administers vaccines and is meant to advise parents with up-to-date and accurate information.

During his testimony before the Committee, Dr Kidd was asked by the Committee Chair about boosters for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). She said that she had boosters when she gave birth to her young children but not the MMR. She asked the doctor if that was necessary.

His answer blew me away. And it should leave you with grave concerns about the competence of Australian doctors if such basic and egregious errors can be made by someone so high up in the medical fraternity.

Dr Kidd answered that, “…we do like to give people MMR preferably before they become pregnant but you can do it during pregnancy.”

Now, if Dr Kidd is giving his pregnant patients the MMR vaccine, he is not only putting their unborn children at risk, but he is also acting in direct contravention to the Australian Government’s guidelines on vaccination!

“MMR-containing vaccines are contraindicated in pregnant women. Pregnancy should be avoided for 28 days after vaccination.”

There is no doubt about this; no controversy. The rubella portion of the MMR vaccine has been contraindicated in pregnancy since it was first manufactured in the 1960s. Rubella vaccines are meant to prevent congenital rubella syndrome, which it is thought can cause congenital malformations and death in a percentage of infants whose mothers contract it during pregnancy. Because the vaccine contains the live attenuated rubella virus, it is possible for it to cause the very same condition it’s meant to prevent if administered during pregnancy – especially during the first trimester. So Dr Kidd’s advice is deceptive, misleading and dangerous.

It is not the only error he made during his testimony. During the same answer to the Committee Chair, Dr Kidd stated that:

“We are routinely giving people boosters for tetanus in particular and attached to that is diphtheria. Maybe we should have the pertussis attached to that as well.”

The mind boggles.

Dr Kidd was speaking about vaccination for adults (because that is what the question was about). There is only ONE vaccine that is recommended for adults who are seeking to have booster shots against diphtheria and tetanus. It is called Boostrixand it is a trivalent vaccine containing antigens for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. Did the good doctor really not know that?

There is a vaccine that is only for diphtheria and tetanus – called ADT (Adult diphtheria and tetanus) but it is not recommended for boosters and is only used in rare instances. Most doctors’ offices would not even have this shot in the fridge.

There were several other instances where Dr Kidd made statements that were either verifiably incorrect or were riding the thin edge of what is provable. I don’t have time to deal with all of those here. But I will end with one of the more bold-faced incorrect statements he made, towards the end of his testimony.

One of the other committee members, a doctor himself, asked Dr Kidd about information that had been provided earlier in the day regarding the possibility of vaccines causing immune dysfunction. The AMA representative was asked if this was true.

His response was:

“There have been a couple of studies but they have been flawed.”

Oh, really?

The link between vaccinations and immune dysfunction/autoimmunity is so strong, it has been given a name in the medical literature – Autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA). Adjuvants are extremely toxic ingredients intentionally added to vaccines to induce an immune response. ASIA is autoimmunity caused by these ingredients. Again, there is no controversy about this – it is an accepted phenomenon within medical circles. So why is Dr Kidd, a GP who deals with vaccinations in his own practice (a practice he claims has a 96% vaccination rate) ignorant of this?

For one thing, there is a textbook by THE world authority on autoimmunity, Dr Yehuda Shoenfeld (you can read his CV at this link – it is very impressive indeed!), called Vaccines and Autoimmunity. This book was co-authored by Nancy Agmon-Levin, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and Dr Lucija Tomljenovic, a PhD researcher at the Neural Dynamics Research Group at the University of British Columbia.

This text is used to teach advanced immunology to students at universities around the world. And it has not been found to be ‘flawed’. It was presented by one of the speakers representing the AVN but the AMA representative was not present in the room at the time so he would not have seen that. The Committee members should have, however.

Below is a small selection of other articles from peer-reviewed journals discussing the link between vaccines and immune system dysfunction – there are many more respected (not flawed) studies. If you are interested in seeing some of them, just click this link to go to a Google Scholar search for studies discussing whether or not vaccines cause autoimmunity. Interesting note – there are 33,000 results – so much for Dr Kidd’s “couple”:

I will be sending a copy of this blog to all sitting members of the QLD Parliament – including those who sat on the Committee that heard Dr Kidd’s testimony. They need to be aware that the information they consider to be sacrosanct because it comes from doctors isn’t necessarily so. I hope to receive appropriate responses in the near future and I will share any and all responses on this blog.

In conclusion, while it is not necessarily surprising (since I have spoken with many doctors over the years who were not well-informed about vaccination ingredients, safety or efficacy), it is disappointing that someone in such an esteemed and responsible position would not be better informed. Doesn’t Dr Kidd realise that as a doctor, he holds a sacred trust? Parents come to him anticipating that he is an expert because the government says he is. The government says all doctors are experts.

But if Dr Kidd has been giving MMR vaccines to pregnant women, he has seriously breached that trust and needs to be held accountable.

Once again, it is clear that when making a vaccination decision, though you should be speaking with your doctor, you should also be seeking independent information from other sources including doing your own research. Taking this responsibility and doing your own research is the only way to keep yourself and your children safe.

Below is the testimony that Greg Beattie, past President of the AVN, would have given had he not had his time unexpectedly shortened. If you would like to read the details of how the AVN was treated at this public inquiry at QLD Parliament, please click here to read the summary.

An interesting thing to note is that in the transcript of the hearing – and please remember that a transcript is supposed to be an exact record of what someone has said – someone either on the committee or employed by them changed the way in which Greg introduced himself. He said that he was a past President of the Australian Vaccination Network and the Transcript was changed to read, “I am a past president of what was then known as the Australian Vaccination Network…”

Someone there did not like Greg saying Australian Vaccination Network, though that WAS the name of the organisation previously, so they took it upon themselves to alter an official transcript!

Without further ado, here is Greg Beattie’s testimony:

I am a past president of the Australian Vaccination Network. I am also an author of two books on the issue. But I speak today as someone who, 20 years ago, challenged a government-run childcare centre that refused to accept my unvaccinated children. The very thing that this Bill promises to protect childcare centres from.

It can’t. This is the first point I’d like to make, and it’s a very important one so I’ll take a couple of minutes to explain. It would be extremely unfortunate if this Bill were to achieve the opposite of its intention, and invite childcare centres to do something which exposed them to, rather than protected them from, liability. But in my estimation, and that of the NSW government, that’s precisely what it will do.

NSW parliament debated an amendment identical to the Bill proposed here in 2013. It didn’t pass because the government recognised that it would expose childcare centres to challenge, and that that challenge would come via the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act – the same Act I used 20 years ago.

Advice from the attorney general confirmed that such a move would place childcare centres in breach of the Act, and that their state legislation was powerless to protect them from that. I’ll quote selectively from the Hansard record of that debate:

“The Government does not support the amendment…. Allowing childcare facilities to adopt their own policies …. is not supported by the childcare industry peak bodies. Public health experts, including the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, have strong objections to such an ad hoc approach.”

“…the proposed amendment would open childcare facilities …. to claims that the facility is in breach of the Commonwealth anti-discrimination law.”

And on the capacity of the NSW public health Act to protect childcare centres from this challenge:

“Exemptions under a Commonwealth or State law apply only to actions taken in direct compliance with a prescribed law. The New South Wales Public Health Act is not a prescribed law under the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act.”

And in case you’re wondering, I’ve checked and the Queensland public health Act is also not a prescribed law.

So, in a nutshell, this Bill promises something it can’t provide. It invites childcare centres to make a decision, and promises to support them in that decision, but it cannot deliver on that promise.

Childcare centres WILL get challenges. They won’t come from me. My children have flown the coop. But there are 1000’s of others out there, ready and waiting. And if you want to meet some, come downtown on Sunday week. A rally against the proposed federal laws has been organised. The last one, a couple of months ago, was attended by several thousand. These are parents who are sick and tired of being pushed around, and are prepared to act.

The second point I’d like to make is that there is no imperative to legislate in this area.

Vaccination has not produced the tremendous benefits that its marketing machine would have us believe. It didn’t save us from the high death rates of the past. Measles deaths peaked in Australia at 175 per 100,000. A century later, when we were about to introduce a vaccine for it, that figure was down to 0.1. The deaths had declined by more than 99% before we started vaccinating for it.

Whooping cough similarly declined around 90%, and diphtheria about 80%, before we started vaccinating for them. But the marketing machine has given all the credit to vaccination. And most people have swallowed that.

Also, experts frequently claim that vaccination saves 3 million lives each year. But ask for the evidence of that and you’ll find they don’t have it. Just that so-and-so said so. And if you ask so-and-so they’ll tell you the same thing. If you’re persistent, and drill down to the source, you WILL find the answer:

“We modelled it on a spreadsheet. We started with the assumption that vaccination prevents 90-odd% of deaths. So we just added up all the vaccines given out and – there’s our figure.”

That figure is of course paraded as evidence of how well vaccination works. Which in turn appears to validate the assumption in the model. It’s called a feedback loop. There IS no empirical evidence. That’s vaccine science. And they wonder why people question it! But there are many more reasons people question it, as can be seen in our submission.

With my third and final point I’d like to make a recommendation to the committee. Given that this Bill will be counter productive, why don’t we try something new? Something daring. Discussion.

Last year a Healthy Lifestyles Expo was run on the Sunshine Coast. The organisers decided to include a short forum on vaccination, since the issue was topical at the time. They approached the state’s chief health officer, Dr Jeanette Young, who you heard from earlier today, as well as our organisation, to supply speakers for a debate. We accepted. Dr Young refused. Her reason – “there’s nothing to debate”. The organisers tried elsewhere, even publicising their request, but no one could be found to speak in support of vaccination.

Unfortunately this happens all the time. Ordinary citizens organise a forum so that the competing viewpoints can be aired publicly, but the pro side refuses to participate. They’ll only turn up if the so-called anti side isn’t allowed to speak. These are classic playground antics.

And who misses out? The public. Those who are trying to make sense of the opposing stories.

Dr Young should relish the opportunity to defend and promote vaccination. In fact, she should facilitate such forums.

This government can do something in this area. It could direct the health hierarchy to promote ongoing and open discussion. Have them encourage questions, concerns, and dissenting voices. Have them provide forums where the so-called anti side is actively INVITED to debate. Have them facilitate similar on-line discussions, as well. Show the community they’re not frightened of dissent. That they’re capable of having their claims publicly scrutinised.

And organisations such as ours should be welcomed, embraced, not demonised. We represent the concerns of the community. Engage us, and address the concerns publicly and cooperatively. Don’t ignore us, or bring a big stick out. That won’t chase us away. It will only galvanise us.

In this way the public will feel secure that the emerging information is robust.

For years our organisation has been subjected to almost every form of inquiry and government sanctioned intimidation you can think of. Why? Because we question vaccination. And we demand attention to our concerns. But we’ve prevailed. And we always will prevail because the reason for our existence is still there. Dissenting voices on vaccination are still being handled with playground antics.

This government, if it were to implement this sort of approach, could be a nation leader – in fact, a world leader – in resolving the divisiveness that this issue brings to our community.

On the 19th of August, 2013, then AVN President, Greg Beattie, gave a presentation before a QLD Parliamentary Inquiry looking into changes to the way in which unvaccinated children are admitted to childcare facilities. The intent was to exclude the unvaccinated or make it more difficult for them to attend.

The Committee Chair was Trevor Ruthenberg and he was both fair and competent in the way he managed the day.

The AVN put together a scientifically-based, well-referenced submission and was treated with great respect by most on this committee whose ultimate decision was, thankfully, not to go ahead with the intended legislative changes.

This last week, On September 10th, due to very similar changes being proposed in QLD, the AVN once again took the time to put together a submission and was called upon to testify.

We assumed that the procedure would be the same and that the Committee would, once again, treat all those who took the time to testify with respect.

Unfortunately, that was not the case.

I was there as an observer so I was able to closely watch both the previous speakers and the AVN representatives.

Altogether, were 12 speakers who were in support of government policies regarding the exclusion of unvaccinated children (actually, Professor Julie Leask, though an avid supporter of vaccination, was not happy with the bill in its present state and said – amongst other things – that it was unethical) and 4 speakers who believed in free and informed health choice. The AVN’s group consisted of Greg Beattie, Tasha David (current AVN President) and Brett Smith, a member of the AVN.

In addition, there was to be a presentation from Ms Rebecca Hansen-Smith, a QLD mother who has been researching this issue extensively and who gave an excellent presentation at the last Committee Meeting.

The AVN was told that they would have 20 minutes in total and they were to present after Prof Julie Leask testified by telephone hookup. They therefore prepared a 3-minute opening statement each (9 minutes in total) and allowed 11 minutes for questions.

Ms Hansen-Smith was also given 20 minutes and she was supposed to be the last speaker of the day, immediately following the AMA (there will be a very long blog about the presentation of Dr Kidd from the AMA within the next day or two).

The Committee members listened to the pro-medical speakers with great attentiveness and asked many, many questions – the majority of them, Dorothy Dixers.

When it came time for the AVN to speak, however, the Committee called Rebecca Hansen-Smith at the same time.

The AVN just assumed that their time had been extended to 40 minutes (which would have been fair) and the Committee just wanted them all to speak together since they were covering the topic from the same point of view.

Less than 2 minutes into Ms Hansen-Smith’s opening statement however (the Committee asked her to go first), the Chair interrupted, asking if she could please wrap it up! Of course, none of us expected this and Rebecca said that she still had important information she had prepared and wanted to get to.

The Chair said that the Committee was running overtime after the previous speakers so the AVN was going to have to cut its time short and also merge its time with another, unrelated person!

Of course, everyone was most upset about this. Tasha had flown in from Melbourne, Brett from Sydney and Greg had travelled from the Sunshine Coast. In their voluntary capacity, they had spent hours putting together submissions and opening statements and now, they were not going to be allowed to put them on the public record!

Greg’s opening statement (in the next blog following this one) was cut in half and neither Brett nor Tasha got to use their statements at all.

To add insult to injury, whilst the Committee had listened very intently to the pro-vaccine speakers, they chatted amongst themselves nearly the entire time the AVN and Ms Hansen-Young were presenting.

You can read the Transcript of the day’s testimony at this link – and as I said previously, I am going to be writing an in-depth analyses of several of these presentations, but I would just like to close by saying that the Committee showed extreme rudeness and disdain for those who were in opposition to the passage of this law.

This was a public hearing and they were the only ones representing the general public. Instead of listening to them and allowing them the requisite time they had been promised, they were ignored and their talks were cut short.

Lastly, when the final presenter of the day, Dr Richard Kidd from the AMA QLD rose to speak, he assured the Chair that he would be as brief as possible. The Chair replied, “We have made up time. Thank you.”

Of course they had made up time! They had cut the two health consumer talks in half in order to give that time to a medical lobby group.

I am hoping that they will at least be fair when determining the outcome of this legislation (and please do take the time to read Greg’s opening statement because it explains why this legislation cannot go ahead in its present state).

As some of you may be aware, many doctors who practice natural therapies have been found dead in suspicious circumstances in the US. You can read a bit about this on the HealthNut website, but needless to say, the fact that so many have died unexpectedly in suspicious circumstances is concerning, to say the least.

That’s why, when I read a couple of days ago about a conference where 30 holistic medial doctors were poisoned in Germany, it seemed to be just a continuation of the US story and, just like the US story, there has been little to no mainstream coverage.

Below is the story as it showed up on the NZ TV website. As you can see, they took this very seriously, said that it was a poisoning and that police were investigating.

Contrast this with the treatment the Medical Observer (MO) gave to the story. The tags (keywords that indicate what a story is about to make it easier for search engines or website searches to categorise and find) Drug Abuse – implying that the drugs were taken intentionally, and Lighter Side (Is there really a lighter side to someone poisoning someone else?).

In addition, the entire thrust of the article is that this was a group of homeopaths and therefore, the ‘overdose’ (they did not use the word poisoning even once though all other media have called it that) may have been self-inflicted, somehow.

This was a crime. The police are investigating it as such. People could have died. The drug that was used on them could cause life-long disability. But because they were natural therapists, apparently, this is a ‘lighter side’ joke piece to this pro-pharma paper. For shame, Medical Observer, for shame!

A couple of months ago, rallies were held in many locations across Australia to protest against planned legislation that would remove a parent’s right to make basic health choices for their children. Thousands of parents came together to demonstrate against these changes – many of them having seen their own children die or become permanently injured as a result of vaccination. Some of them were even vaccine-injured themselves. Please scroll down the page for a small selection of videos covering these marches from independent media outlets. The reason I can’t share any mainstream videos or reports is because the corrupt, bought mainstream media did not attend or cover these rallies.

Parliament is still intending to pass this legislation and, even though the bill has not even been tabled yet so I cannot give you any details of what it will contain, according to the government, the plan is to remove payments from families who don’t completely vaccinate their children and also to stop them from attending childcare today – school in the future.

If the intent is anything like the bills being passed in the US (especially SB277 in the State of California), legislating against unvaccinated children is just the beginning. Debate is taking place about expanding the California legislation to prevent unvaccinated parents from volunteering in schools and forcing teachers, aides and school staff to be fully vaccinated as well or lose their jobs.

This is the thin end of the wedge, in other words.

More rallies will be held in Australia on September 20th, 2015 – less than 2 weeks from today.

We need to send a strong and unified message to the Federal and State governments – that this is an issue we are passionate about. We take our roles as parents, protectors and decision-makers seriously. We will not have those roles taken away from us.

Even if you vaccinate, you should be concerned at this attempt to interfere with parental choice. Today, it is vaccination – what will the government try to force on us tomorrow?

In addition, there are currently over 270 new vaccines in development. Many of them are being fast-tracked into approval (as Gardasil was fast-tracked with disastrous results!) and, should this legislation be allowed to go ahead, you and your children could be forced to take not just dozens of shots (as we see today), but hundreds in the near future.

Rights we are born with

The fact is that there are some rights that are inherent. These are basic human rights we are born with and that no government can or should be allowed to interfere with. The government cannot tell us what treatments or preventatives we can or can’t use in our own bodies or in the bodies of minor children who are under our protection. Despite this, they are trying to do just that.

If you believe strongly in human rights; if you want to support these families whose children have been injured or killed by vaccines (or you or your family has had a negative experience with vaccines), I urge you to set this date aside and to attend the rally nearest you.

Below is a list of the rally locations. I am waiting on information regarding any rallies in Tasmania or other locations. If someone has any details to share, please do so in the comments section and I will update this blog post.

We MUST stand together against repressive, discriminatory government legislation as citizens of a free, democratic nation. If we don’t protect our children and ourselves, we cannot expect others to do it for us.

No Jab, No Pay? No Jab, no Play? No Way! Rallies

Please note – there have been several changes to the schedule and one addition (Tasmania). I am updating this blog post but also bookmark the No Jab No Pay NO WAYpage for the most up-to-date information going forward. I hope you are ALL planning on going to the rallies in your own areas. I will be at the Brisbane rally and would love to meet you if you wouldn’t mind coming up to say hi.

I was driving home from the post office just after 4 PM today when my mobile phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number so I almost didn’t answer it but curiosity got the better of me and when I picked up the phone, I discovered that it was a journalist from the Medical Observer.

Was he calling to ask questions about why so many parents are up in arms over the government’s discriminatory and illegal “No Jab, No Pay” policy that is supposedly being introduced in January (though the legislation hasn’t been tabled in Parliament as of yet)?

No.

Was he interested in finding out why the health of Australia’s children is now worse than it’s ever been, with nearly 50% of our kids under the age of 12 being treated for at least one chronic condition and childhood cancers, diabetes, asthma, autism, ADD and other autoimmune conditions soaring to new records every year?

No.

Was he calling to ask about why the Australian government is still recommending HPV vaccines when Japan withdrew their recommendations over a year ago due to a large number of serious reactions with France, Spain and other European countries also asking whether they should continue pushing this dangerous shot?

No.

Or, while we are on the subject of the HPV vaccine, was he wanting to discuss the dozens of young women in Mexico who had seizures immediately after getting this shot – and the fact that those seizures were caught on video and shared around the world.

No.

The reason he was calling – and the reason why I had to laugh when he started talking (nothing personal – I’m sure he is a lovely man), was because at a time when there are so many pressing issues surrounding vaccinations today, the Medical Observer wanted to know why I was no longer the Public Officer of the AVN.

I told him that this is not a story. And if he wanted to write a REAL story, how about covering the issue of Dr William Thompson, the CDC Whistleblower, who has admitted to colluding with his superiors at the Centers for Disease Control in order to hide a strong, scientifically-proven link between vaccinations and autism – especially in black children.*

When I told him that there would be a Congressional Inquiry into this crime and that Congressman Bill Posey had been given thousands of pages proving the cover-up, the journo said that this was no doubt an important issue but, why was I no longer on the AVN Committee and were there any hard feelings between myself and Tasha David, the AVN’s President?

I again reiterated that this was NOT a story! I fully supported the AVN and was simply retired from the committee after more than 20 years as its head. But how about writing an article about vaccine injuries?

Every day in Australia and around the world, children were being killed or injured by vaccines. They needed a voice in the media. The Medical Observer should BE that voice. They should be covering these issues instead of chasing or manufacturing rubbish articles about nothing at all.

He then asked me about the AVN’s finances and whether I was concerned about an apparent drop in membership.

I told him that any questions about money should be addressed to the AVN’s President or their Treasurer. I am just a member. You wouldn’t just scroll through the membership of the Liberal party and call random members to ask them whether they were concerned about the Liberal party’s spending, would you?

Yes, he told me, he would!

So, I realised at this point that trying to get him interested in covering a real story or trying to get the Medical Observer to take this issue, our children and our rights seriously was, sadly, a lost cause.

One day, in the not too distant future, when the evidence of vaccine risks and ineffectiveness becomes so overwhelming, even the Australian media can no longer suppress or ignore it, this journalist might look back on our conversation and wonder why he didn’t choose to report the real news instead of the fluff.

At that point, regardless of what he has done in the intervening months, he will never be able to say that he didn’t know or that he was just following orders.

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

No, none of this really matters so don’t even worry about them. New anti-viral$ will be developed by Big Pharma to help ‘treat’ your flu infection$. I’m $ure they will be every bit a$ $afe a$ Tamiflu was. Oh…wait a minute…

So pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Don’t be concerned with the choices you make regarding your health – there is nothing you can do to improve it outside of the needles and pills your doctor pushes at and into you.

Western medical practitioners and researchers – the Calvinists of ‘science’!

Findings show that the severity of infection can be partially governed by a person’s genetic make-up, and opens the door to new types of anti-viral drugs

Below is a table of vaccinations which are recommended before, during and after pregnancy for American women. The table is from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) -the corrupt American Government body that has been implicated in colluding with pharmaceutical interests to cover up and suppress information on the link between vaccinations and autism (amongst other things).*

Please note that NONE of these vaccines have ever been tested for safety during pregnancy and that since the US Government began recommending vaccines to pregnant women, the number of fetal deaths has exceeded postnatal deaths the first time ever. (Fetal and Perinatal Mortality: United States, 2013)

Australia also started to recommend vaccinations during pregnancy – even during the first trimester when moms are supposed to avoid exposure to any and all toxins and drugs.

Are millions of children being killed and permanently injured in the womb where their parents will never suspect the involvement of vaccines? Will children who are born with multiple birth defects and congenital issues or being miscarried hours or days after their mothers were vaccinated ever be counted in the official toll of vaccine victims?

If you know of someone who is currently pregnant or is thinking of getting pregnant sometime in the future, please share this information with them.

If you are a pediatrician, obstetrician or other health professional, please become informed about the risks of the procedures you recommend. Primum non nocere – Firstly, do no harm.

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the nocompulsoryvaccination blog. This blog is a forum, support and information site and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from the government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

Benjamin Rush is nocompulsoryvaccination’s USA Correspondent and the owner of the Fans of the AVN Facebook page.

I am reposting this extremely important information here. Please everyone, read, share and consider! I have just joined this party this morning (was previously a member of the Greens – HAH! With di Natale as head, that party is now nothing more than a pro-pharma joke!). If you believe in freedom of choice in Australia; if you believe in justice for Australians, consider joining this party too and do it soon because they MUST get 700 more members by Monday. The septics are out to shut them down – let’s show them that our voices count! Read and share, read and share!

Thanks,

Meryl

URGENT!

As you all know I have been telling you about Jeff Hodges from the Consumer Rights and No Tolls political party.
Unfortunately the anti-choice community have decided that he should be silenced and have put in a complaint to try and get his website domain taken away. He now has until Monday to get 700 members to register as a national party.
This assault on anyone who dares question the status quo needs to stop, it is unnecessary and ridiculous. Please join me and showing them that we are sick of being pushed around and let’s get some politicians in parliament that will be our voice!
Jeff’s party has been running since 2012/13 and are getting close to having enough members to register with the electoral commission, if any of you can support his party please check out his website http://www.consumerrights.org.au/ and register.
He needs your name, address and birth date, if you are already a member of another party you have the option to join his party and take your allegiance over to Consumer Rights and No Tolls party it is your right and your choice.
It is free to join and if you feel like changing your mind later on you can do that too, but let’s get Jeff’s party up and running and let the cyber bullies know enough is enough!

“Hello, I am Jeffrey Hodges, Founder and secretary of the new Consumer Rights & No Tolls party, and we really need your help please.

We want to stand at the next election for consumer rights issues, and we stand strongly beside you in regards the rights of people to refuse vaccinations and not be discriminated against. We will do whatever we can when elected to repeal the discriminatory ‘No jab, No pay’ legislation which both the ALP and LNP support.

However, to become a registered party we need at least 700 foundation members – and we need you to provide your full name, date of birth and residential address as per the electoral roll.

There is no cost – membership is totally free – and there is no obligation for you to be involved in any way. You would just be helping us ‘have a go’ and stand against ‘No jab, No pay’ and other important consumer rights issues. Please have a look at our website and join us if you agree with what we stand for.
You can join online at www.consumerrights.org.au

There is an urgency in this as we are wanting to register the party next week – so please, please, join us by the weekend!
If you have any questions, you can call me personally on 07 5445 7994.

As you probably know, thousands of Australians marched in every capital city in Australia on June 21st to protest against the Abbott government’s planned “No Jab, No Pay” legislation.

The only reason you would know this is because you read about it on Facebook, or on this blog or another website since NONE of the Australian media actually attended or covered these marches. Some independent outlets such as tottnews.com and Fair Dinkum Radio did, but the majority of Australians who will be affected by this new legislation are totally unaware of the potential implications of these tyrannical government moves or of the efforts to oppose them.

The reason for this news blackout is a policy that has government and ‘scientific community’ approval called False Balance.

According to False Balance, there are some issues that are so widely accepted, it would be wrong to report on them except from the point of view of the mainstream.

Climate change is one of these issues and I personally have very little knowledge of those who oppose climate change, but the fact is that those who oppose the government view have had their concerns suppressed and denigrated by mainstream media.

The dangers of fluoride is another such issue and has been for decades, despite mountains of scientific proof that fluoride does not improve the risk of dental caries and can cause significant harm to the health of the population.

Information on vaccination risks and ineffectiveness, however, is the single issue which the media, the government and the medical community have been trying with all their might to completely obliterate. To the point of censorship. To the point of criminalising those who even ask reasonable scientific questions. To the point of destroying the careers of scientists and researchers who have done studies pointing to valid concerns about the harms vaccines can and do cause and the obvious corruption involved in pharmaceutically-sponsored vaccine ‘studies’.

The excuse for this suppression and censorship is False Balance.

Now, I truly believe that the Australian (and world) population is intelligent and discerning enough to view both sides of any scientific issue – as long as they are given information in order to become educated about it. That is what I have always believed but apparently, neither our elected government nor the media agree with that viewpoint.

Because they say that allowing Australians to hear both sides of the vaccination debate is False Balance. That the scientific data proving that – for a percentage of those who receive vaccines – the outcomes can be fatal or life-changing and/or the vaccines themselves may not work to prevent disease or make the person healthy will ‘confuse’ us; that we are not capable of understanding or making our own decisions and as a result, we need the government to tell us what to do with our children’s and our own bodies.

The only excuse for exercising censorship in the name of False Balance is an incorrect assumption that Australians are too stupid to read or view information and understand how that information relates to their own lives.

False Balance is the reason why every single doctor, medical authority, scientist and health minister has said no when challenged to present their information on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines to a live audience. In fact, even when the magazine I used to publish, Informed Choice, asked for an article on the benefits of vaccination, that request was declined by everyone who was asked.

Using False Balance, the government and the medical community can continue to hide behind their lies about vaccination. They can persist in making claims that are completely unsupported by evidence (such as the claims that vaccines don’t cause reactions or deaths; and that vaccines will only work if everyone takes them).

There is no such thing as false balance – there is only freedom of information and the ability to make decisions without fear of bullying, financial penalties or other forms of duress.

If you do nothing else today, please watch and share this video of Lissa Weckert speaking at the No Jab, No Pay rally in Brisbane on June 21, 2015. There is another march scheduled for September this year. Please be sure to subscribe to this blog as we will keep you informed of all future actions to protect health rights and prevent compulsory vaccination.

Is Big Brother using Australia as his ‘testing ground’ for repressive policies? Will Australians stand idly by whilst their rights, their livelihoods and their children become nothing more than profit centres for corporate interests? The future will see what the result will be. But I am hoping that our proud Australian nation will stand up and draw a line in the sand – only this far and no further!

A new report, undoubtedly overblown in its predictions, but still important, states that up to 40% of Australian jobs could be transferred to machines in the next several decades, with a projected loss of five million human jobs by 2030.

On June 18, 2015, the Sacramento Bee, a major daily newspaper from California’s capital city, published an article about the funding push behind SB277 – legislation intended to take away parent’s rights to philosophical and religious exemptions to vaccination.

The attempts to remove parental choice that we are seeing in Australia are happening in just about every country around the world and are being coordinated and funded directly by the companies that produce and profit from vaccines.

Entitled,Drug companies donated millions to California lawmakers before vaccine debate, this article in a major, mainstream newspaper, paints a sordid picture of corruption occuring in plain view. Senator Richard Pan, a medical doctor who introduced this bill and has been playing all sorts of nasty tricks to prevent the opposition from having a say. He has had over $500,000 donated to his campaign by drug companies over the last 4 years. Many others in the California Senate have had similar amounts ‘given’ to them by these vested interests and I personally believe that these politicians have been bought in order to gain their support for this tyrannical legislation.

As bad as this information is, at least in the US, it is available to the public. In Australia, there is no way to find out how much money our politicians have taken from Big Pharma (and other corporate interests) in order to promote their products.

A Voice for Choice, a consumer organisation that supports freedom of choice on this subject, is funding a week’s worth of political cartoons in the Sacramento Bee newspaper. Even if I had the money to do the same here in Australia, I doubt that any newspaper or magazine would run these cartoons because they answer to their advertisers – not their readers.

Here is the first cartoon – I will publish the others on this page as they are published in the US.

On June 21, 2015, groups of parents marched in every capital city across Australia to support the right to make free and informed vaccination choices for their children and themselves. These events were coordinated by groups of volunteers who worked very hard to try and make sure that as many people as possible were able to attend. Unfortunately, the (mainly) Murdoch media refused to either publicise or report on these marches. In Brisbane, more than 1,000 people showed up to have their say and to hear speakers talk about why vaccinations must never be made compulsory nor should financial penalties or discrimination be government-supported. Anna-Marie Stancombe, who was present at the Brisbane march, has been kind enough to provide us with her take on this very successful day – the first of many. Please be sure to sign up for updates on this blog as we will shortly be providing you with other ways in which you and your family and friends can act to support your health rights.

By Anna-Marie Stancombe

It was a beautiful winter’s day with Brisbane shining from the warmth of the sun, the public enjoying their Sunday of shopping and coffees. They were oblivious to what was coming. On the horizon there was a storm brewing over in the picturesque Queens Park.

A few hundred people had started to gather. The young, the old, those with children and those without. The mothers, the fathers, the grandparents, brothers and sisters. They also were enjoying the glorious weather, but they were there for a purpose – a very important purpose.

We all had one common goal – to defend our absolute God-given right to ‘valid consent’. Our right to choose medical procedures for ourselves and, most importantly, for our children. Our human rights to speak out against medical and government tyranny.

The theme of the day was ‘No Jab, No Pay, No Way’. This protest was in response to the purposely controlled and planned campaign by Rupert Murdoch’s papers of ‘No jab, No play’. This has resulted in the Government announcing legislative reform to revoke family tax benefits and child care rebates of conscientious objectors to vaccinations. There will also be no religious exemptions.

People gathered to promote freedom of choice against state-enforced measures that used lies, deception, coercion and propaganda.

By 11 am there was more than 600 peaceful protesters gathered with their placards and t-shirts. They all asked for the same result – freedom to choose. Some of the slogans said:

‘We are protesting for your democratic right’,

‘The bill contradicts valid consent, we will not be manipulated’,

‘If it comes with a risk, there must be a choice’,

‘Human rights = Health choice’,

‘Discrimination alive and well in Australia’,

‘Our child, our choice’,

‘Pro choice, Pro democracy’

‘Stop violating Human Rights’

‘Always vote no to biased media’

And of course ‘No Jab, No Pay, No way.

There were guest speakers, who bravely talked of personal experience of their children who were damaged by vaccines. There were speakers who presented the other side of the vaccination debate – the information doctors and the medical field neglect to openly talk about. The dangers and risks of vaccinations. No one was promoting not vaccinating, they were simply presenting a balanced view of the pros and cons of vaccination and the risks involved.

We even had an ex-police sergeant, Chris Savage, who passionately told of his battle to expose the incredibly heartbreaking abuse by the ‘system’ where innocent parents have been accused or worse still, charged with ‘child abuse and murder’ of their children when they have sadly and suddenly died from an adverse vaccine reaction. He lost his career and was ostracised after trying to help these innocent families.

Mainstream media was very obviously absent when more than a thousand people marched through the streets of Brisbane in solidarity. We sang in We sang in unison – ‘Where there’s risk, there must be choice. Where there’s risk, there must be choice’.

Representatives from Brisbane’s own VAIS were on hand to give out information to parents and others. They have been volunteering for over 25 years on this issue.

Shopkeepers and shoppers both came out to look; people put down their coffees to ask what was happening. What was all the noise about, they wanted to know? Our message was loud and clear and it was getting through.

‘We are fighting for your democratic right’

‘No Jab, No Pay, No way’

Similar rallies were held all around Australia’s capital cities and were well attended. Brisbane reportedly had the biggest turn out. It must be the weather.

This surely must be one of the most heated debates in existence. For any parent, who honestly and objectively looks at both sides of the issue it is so unbelievably confusing. Google ‘child vaccination’ and I’m sure you’ll see what I mean (as you probably have already done!)

I’m neither for vaccine nor against it. I’m also certainly not an expert on the subject. My view with this issue is about simply protecting my child the best way I can. I have never been one to just go along with the crowd however, and so I have had many serious questions about vaccination. I wanted to find out particularly why some people are so very against it.

Unfortunately as everything is so PRO vaccination, one of the most particularly challenging things I found as a parent with questions about it, was the hard hitting criticism I received simply by asking! All I wanted to do is make an informed decision.

This judgement (or fear) from people comes from the deep beliefs in the decision that they have made to protect themselves and their child’s health. The thought of finding out that you may have possibly seriously harmed your child is devastating for a parent. Often for many people, this fear will present itself as an outburst of abuse. You have probably noticed how heated the issue becomes on the forums and message boards online which really is such a waste of energy on both sides.

If there is a peaceful protest being held within driving distance of where you live, please plan to add your voice to the calls for health freedom. Our rights are under threat like never before and everyone needs to get involved before this draconian legislation sails through Parliament. Thank you to the organisers for taking the initiative in bringing these events together. May they be well-attended and reported on fairly.

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We are a group of individuals and parents who believe in freedom of choice and the right of all parents to make their families medical choices free from coercion, manipulation and blackmail! We have a nationwide peaceful protest marches being held across Australia on Sunday 21st June 2015, Please join us and stand up for parental rights and the human rights!

In recent days the US Vaccine Adverse Events Reports database (VAERS), opened a quarter of a century ago, was updated to top more than half a million reports. While listing on VAERS does not mean a vaccine injury report is confirmed it is also as a passive reporting database likely to under-report by many times and may represent numerically no more than 1 or 2% of cases.

Although monitored by both the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration it is doubtful whether the database has ever led to the official acknowledgment of any single injury. It may be that in one instance a product, Wyeth’s Rotashield, was removed from the market as a result of evidence from the database. On that occasion the removal of the product was greatly to the benefit of the nation’s leading vaccine advocate, Paul Offit, who was piloting a rival product. On other occasions VAERS data may have contributed modestly to policy changes which would anyway have occurred .

My local newspaper, The Northern Star, ran the following article regarding the proposed punishments of law-abiding Australians trying to make informed choices for the protection of their children. These parents — the majority of whom are (according to numerous Australian government studies) highly educated and well-researched on this subject — believe that:

1- Vaccines carry serious risks including the risk of lifelong disability or death.

2- Vaccines are not as effective as doctors have claimed them to be.

3- Healthy unvaccinated children do not carry or transmit diseases to others, though their vaccinated counterparts do (e.g. those who have received live virus vaccines and those who have been vaccinated against pertussis (whooping cough), who recent studies show may be more likely to infect others with the illness)

4- In a democratic nation such as Australia, that is a signatory to the Nuremburg Code, personal informed choice is sacrosanct and must never be abridged in any way.

Many of you may not know this, but the AVN was instrumental in the lobbying efforts to introduce a conscientious objector clause into Federal legislation so that a generation of parents between then (the late 1990s) and now was able to access all government benefits. Now, moves are afoot to wipe out our hard work on your behalf.

Below are my responses to this article (the original article is in block quotes below). I would love to hear your feedback on what you are willing to do to protect your rights. Please suggest ideas (visits to politicians, protest marches, letters, petitions, etc.), and let me know whether you would be prepared to be one of those who takes action against these tyrannical moves by our pharma-controlled government, by clicking here to send me an email with your contact details and ideas.

Vaccination supporters welcome government crack down

Luke Mortimer

Northern Star

11 April, 2015

NORTHERN Rivers Vaccination Supporters has welcomed moves by the Federal Government to crack down on parents avoiding vaccinating their children.

Well, this is no surprise! The Northern Rivers Vaccination Supporters is a small group of people involved with Stop the AVN (SAVN). They have always favoured compulsory vaccination. I would be very surprised if they were ever quoted as being supportive of health rights or the right to freedom of choice or speech. That is not their way.

ALISON GAYLARD: Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. And science is factual.

No, Alison; I’m sorry to have to tell you that science is neither factual nor wrong. Science is a process by which hypotheses are tested. And there are few hard and fast rules in science. Some examples of indisputable facts are: yes, the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west; yes, living things respire, reproduce, and die. Scientific conclusions are, by their very nature, open to debate, interpretation, and testing. That process is what we call science.

In recent days, Social Services Minister Scott Morrison confirmed to media outlets the government was reviewing ambiguous legislation that allowed parents to object to immunisations for personal or philosophical reasons.

It’s strange that Minister Morrison describes this legislation as ‘ambiguous’. It is anything but. The legislation describes exactly how those who object to getting their children vaccinated can still access government entitlements. And the important word there is ‘entitlements’ — because these are things that ALL citizens and residents of Australia are entitled to. Our Federal Government is signatory to many international treaties and codes that enshrine our right to make free, informed health choices.

In fact, the Australian Medical Association (AMA), the National Health and Medical Research Council (NH&MRC), and various other government and medical industry bodies all state — quite unambiguously — that they support this right and that it is one of their core values.

So is Minister Morrison unaware of these facts? Or was he elected into public office to protect a multi-trillion-dollar international business model (that of Big Pharma) instead of the rights and needs of his constituents?

Mullumbimby’s Alison Gaylard, a founding member of Northern Rivers Vaccination Supporters, hoped the review would go some way towards improving the North Coast’s immunisation rates, which were the worst in the country in 2014.

The vaccination rates may or may not be “the worst in the country”, but no matter how bad they are, they are still orders of magnitude higher than they were in 1991, when our rate of infectious diseases such as whooping cough was far lower than it is today. So we have had an overall increase in vaccination rates along with a concomitant increase in disease. How, then, is it possible to blame the unvaccinated? And yet, read on and see that Ms Gaylard does just that!

Ms Gaylard helped start the group after her two daughters became ill with whooping cough.

Please note that both Ms Gaylard’s daughters had been vaccinated against whooping cough. Read that again: they had been vaccinated. The vaccine failed them both. But Ms Gaylard, rather than face up to the known ineffectiveness of the vaccine (not conjecture on my part: many, many studies have and still do demonstrate that the vaccinated may be unprotected), Ms Gaylard blames some nameless, faceless unvaccinated people for the failure of the vaccine to protect her children.

If I go out for a drive today and run into a light pole, I have as much right blame the full moon or the orange juice I had for breakfast as Ms Gaylard has to blame the unvaccinated for the failure of a vaccine. In fact, I would go further and state that placing the blame on the unvaccinated is not only unscientific and without any evidence; it is plain dumb.

“We have a high number of conscientious objectors in this area, especially in Mullumbimby. I think it will (improve immunisation rates),” she said.

Well, no doubt there are some families who will vaccinate their children because they rely on government payments to put food on the table, a roof over their head, and clothes on their children’s backs. It is those least able to afford these financial penalties who are being targeted and who will be most likely to make the decision to vaccinate purely for financial reasons. Do we really want to live in a society in which people are forced to give their children medical procedures that — let’s face it — have real and (in some cases) quantifiable risks, against the informed choice of those who love them most, their parents? In my case, the answer is, no: I do not want to live in such a society. It is immoral, unethical, undemocratic, and just plain wrong. If there is a risk, there must always be a choice.

“We have a high number of people who’ve bought into the anti-vaccination stance, so as to whether they’ll be concerned about whether they’ll lose childcare benefits or facilities, I’m unsure how it’ll impact here. We’ll be watching with interest. Our demographic here is so diverse.”

Those who have “bought into the anti-vaccination stance” — which is how Ms Gaylard and her ilk characterise anybody who doesn’t buy into their peculiar brand of magical thinking — have generally made their choice after:

1- having a child who was injured or killed by a vaccine or vaccines;

2- knowing someone who was injured or killed by a vaccine or vaccines; and/or

3- spending many hours (commonly in the hundreds or thousands of hours) researching this issue for themselves.

After all, it is so easy to say yes to vaccination; it is far harder to say no in today’s society. So that decision must be respected by a government that is truly representative of its citizen’s rights.

Ms Gaylard said there was indisputable evidence regarding immunisation’s benefits.

I would welcome Ms Gaylard’s providing such “indisputable evidence” of vaccination’s benefits. Calling vaccinations immunisations is the first clue that Ms Gaylard has no idea what she is talking about since even immunologists and paediatricians admit that vaccines don’t immunise and therefore, the words cannot truthfully be used interchangeably.

If Ms Gaylard is a woman of her word, I would like to challenge her to a public debate on this issue. Since she is so sure she has this “indisputable evidence”, let her present it in a fair and open forum to allow those in attendance to hear and see it and decide that for themselves.

If she feels that she is not qualified to present the facts behind the benefits and safety of vaccination, she is more than welcome to find a medical professional, government health official, or anyone else to take her place.

Come to the party, Alison. If you really are firm in your convictions, support them with the evidence.

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the AVN National Committee. The AVN is a forum, support and information organisation and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

Not vaccinating your child is not something you take lightly as a parent. The bombardment of vaccine propaganda is in your face everywhere you look and some are scared to even let others know that they don’t vaccinate because they don’t want their children to face the stigma of going against the crowd. Going to the doctors can be a battleground where you are berated and belittled for not conforming to the status quo. The simple act of going to the emergency room because your child broke their arm always starts with the question “Is your child up to date on their immunisations?” and you think to yourself – here we go again!

So there really is nothing trendy about not vaccinating your child…

But do you want to know what IS really trendy right now? It is the demonising and current witch-hunt against parents who choose not to vaccinate their children.

The world has become a bully’s wonderland right now. You can harass and be hateful towards ‘anti vax’ parents and no one will even consider it to be bullying.

You can tell them how crap they are as parents!

You can tell them to go and take their disease-ridden brats away from your [fully-vaccinated] children!

You can tell them how they are stupid, selfish, moronic, irresponsible, tin foil hat wearing, rabid ‘anti vaxxers’ who are child abusers and whose children should be taken away from them!

You can even tell them that you hope that they and their children die to clean out the stupid from the gene pool!

No one will even pull you up for those cruel and despicable comments because ‘anti vaxxers’ deserve it, right?

You cannot shame a parent in to harming their child and yet, that is what you are asking us (especially the parents of vaccine injured children) to do.

All the bullying, vilifying, suing, incarcerating or (completely illegally) making their names and addresses publicly available to the world, will not change a thing. By the way Joe Matthews (the author of the afore-mentioned article), the whole sticker idea to show who the outcasts of society are? That’s already been done before. The last time, they were made to wear yellow stars. I guess tyrannical minds think alike.

It also shows how very little you know about parents who choose not to vaccinate. Let’s get one thing straight. I do not choose to inject pharmaceutical products in to my children’s bodies anymore because vaccines hurt them and caused not just “a week of hell”, but a lifetime of hellish challenges.

I don’t blame others for my children’s health issues, I realise that we are all just trying to do the best we can for our children. Anyway I am too busy trying to heal my children’s bodies to run around pointing fingers.

My choice to not be informed about what I was injecting in to my babies caused them numerous health issues and robbed three of my children of ever being able to live an independent life, of being able to fall in love or able to have a family of their own and those facts will haunt me for the rest of my days.

There is nothing in this world you could do to me to make me forget this no matter how much I want to, because you cannot unsee the damage done to your child.

I cannot unsee having to search for my child when she absconded from my parent’s back yard and then find her running down the middle of a busy street surrounded by cars beeping their horns and yelling at her to get off the road, because she has no sense of danger.

I cannot unsee waking up in the early hours of the morning to see my other daughter covered head to toe in her own faeces that she ate while smearing it all over the walls.

I cannot unsee my son trying so hard to speak so that he could play with the other children in the playground but all he could do was scream, till they ran away.

I cannot unsee the vast difference in health between my vaccinated and unvaccinated children and not know that it is my fault.

There is nothing you could do that would ever make me vaccinate them again. I would rather die than see them be hurt. Luckily I have found that there is a better way to raise healthy children and my children have thrived because of it. It is called taking responsibility for the health of your own children. Learning how to naturally support and boost their immune systems and not expect other parents to put their healthy children at risk of injury or death just because you believe that that will protect yours.

You want to know the most important reason why I and many other parents don’t vaccinate their child? We do it because we love them, just like you love your child and no amount of legislation or shaming tactics will ever overcome that.

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the AVN National Committee. The AVN is a forum, support and information organisation and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.

My wonderful late husband, George Maxwell, MD, was the professor of paediatrics at University of Adelaide. As I recall, he had full faith in childhood vaccination. But if he were alive today and saw the new research on vax, I think he would do a turn-around.
He’d be sad that his teachers at Edinburgh did not tip him off to the fact that Edward Jenner, who fired the first ‘shot’ in 1796, was a con artist. All doctors today stand to be embarrassed by this, but let’s just get the embarrassment over quickly.

As for the visit to Oz of a doctor named Sherri Tenpenny, George would certainly approve of her offering her opinion on vax, even if it were diametrically opposed to his. Isn’t that what science is all about? If her message were harmful, George would be licking his chops at the thought of combatting her ideas.

“Indeed, given the breadth of the potential problems raised at the meeting, can any medical-research studies be trusted? That question has been central to Ioannidis’s career. He’s what’s known as a meta-researcher, and he’s become one of the world’s foremost experts on the credibility of medical research. He and his team have shown, again and again, and in many different ways, that much of what biomedical researchers conclude in published studies—conclusions that doctors keep in mind when they prescribe antibiotics or blood-pressure medication, or when they advise us to consume more fiber or less meat, or when they recommend surgery for heart disease or back pain—is misleading, exaggerated, and often flat-out wrong. He charges that as much as 90 percent of the published medical information that doctors rely on is flawed. His work has been widely accepted by the medical community; it has been published in the field’s top journals, where it is heavily cited; and he is a big draw at conferences. Given this exposure, and the fact that his work broadly targets everyone else’s work in medicine, as well as everything that physicians do and all the health advice we get, Ioannidis may be one of the most influential scientists alive. Yet for all his influence, he worries that the field of medical research is so pervasively flawed, and so riddled with conflicts of interest, that it might be chronically resistant to change—or even to publicly admitting that there’s a problem.

MUCH OF WHAT MEDICAL RESEARCHERS CONCLUDE IN THEIR STUDIES IS MISLEADING, EXAGGERATED OR FLAT-OUT WRONG!

David Freedman, The Atlantic.com
10-4-10

Dr John Ioannidis

So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science.

Excerpts:

Indeed, given the breadth of the potential problems raised at the meeting, can any medical-research studies be trusted?

That question has been central to Ioannidis’s career. He’s what’s known as a meta-researcher, and he’s become one of the world’s foremost experts on the credibility of medical research. He and his team have shown, again and again, and in many different ways, that much of what biomedical researchers conclude in published studies—conclusions that doctors keep in mind when they prescribe antibiotics or blood-pressure medication, or when they advise us to consume more fiber or less meat, or when…

Forced vaccination is unconstitutional

by Rixta Francis

The self-proclaimed (and generally accepted) gold standard of the pharmaceutical industry is the double-blind, placebo-controlled study (a placebo being a neutral, ineffective substance; in the case of vaccinations, a saline solution). There is a lot wrong with this gold standard, but let’s just accept that it is the standard that a drug’s claims to effectiveness and safety are expected to meet. Without positive studies like this, drugs will rarely be accepted by the government regulators.

Vaccines are drugs, and they are made by the pharmaceutical industry. But they are the exception to the rule, for the abovementioned gold standard is NOT applied to vaccines. There is no double-blind, placebo-controlled study that shows that vaccines are either safe or effective, let alone a study that shows the effects of multiple vaccines given, as is common practice, simultaneously. Those studies simply are not done. The reason the pharmaceutical industry gives for that is that it would be unethical to withhold a vaccine from the children in the placebo group. It seems to bother nobody that this means that children (and adults) are injected with drugs that have in no way been proven to be either safe or effective.

Vaccine efficacy is fatally flawed as a substitute for vaccine effectiveness. A vaccine’s efficacy is measured by the proportion of vaccinees developing a certain concentration of antibodies, a concentration believed to be protective. But scientists have already known for three decades that antibodies do NOT equal immunity. The only way to measure vaccine efficacy in a lab is completely useless for measuring its effectiveness in an epidemic. But that too seems to bother nobody; in lieu of its effectiveness at protection, the drug’s efficacy in antibody production is still used universally to sell it.

Those who try to impose their beliefs on others, we call zealots.

The reason people don’t care about these facts is that they have such a strong BELIEF in these shots that it doesn’t seem to matter whether there is any evidence of safety or efficacy. But anyone can believe anything; that doesn’t mean it’s true. And it doesn’t matter either that most doctors believe in it and that many people believe their doctors. There are some 1.5 billion people who believe in Jesus, some 800 million who believe in Allah, some 800 million who believe in Shiva. That’s considerably more than the number of doctors who believe in vaccinations. Still everyone agrees that these are religions and not science. So ‘everyone believes it’ doesn’t make a belief anything more than a belief.

Our freedom NOT to practice the religion of vaccination

The Australian constitution grants us freedom of religion. Section 116 of the constitution says:

“The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.”

It’s clear: the Australian constitution prohibits forcing any kind of religious practice onto anybody else. That prohibition includes government discrimination that is based in any way on submission or non-submission to any religion or religious practice.

This implies that nobody can be denied government payments or a job or anything else solely based on refusal to submit to the religious practice of vaccination. If the government, an employer, or anybody else is to implement discrimination on the basis of vaccination, then it will have to show clear, indisputable proof that the vaccine’s claimed safety and efficacy are based on science and not on beliefs. The burden of proof is not on those who refuse to accept those beliefs; it’s solely on those who want to force others to submit to them.

If the government (or anybody else) denies Australian citizens the FULL freedom to accept or reject vaccinations for themselves or their children, then it does so in contravention of the constitution. And that means the end of Australia as a democracy.

Please note: Blog posts are opinion pieces which represent the views of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the AVN National Committee. The AVN is a forum, support and information organisation and outlet for discussion about the relative benefits and risks of vaccinations in particular – and medical procedures in general. We do not provide medical advice but believe that everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to do their own research before making decisions for their families. The information we provide (including your personal review of the references we cite) should be taken in conjunction with a range of other data, including that obtained from government, your health care provider and/or other medical source material to assist you in developing the knowledge required to make informed health choices.